USA > Tennessee > History of the Twentieth Tennessee regiment volunteer infantry, C.S.A > Part 23
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The Confederate troops who fought on the south side would go up against this mountain of blue only to be repulsed and fall back in the Dyer field, just far enough to reform in line in face and full view of the enemy, and return to the charge time after time. It was a scene grand, glorious, and bewildering. The Confederates seem to have been intoxicated with prospects of final victory, and about 6 : 30 o'clock Hindman, Preston, and Bushrod Johnson, with nine brigades, made that awful assault from the west that swept the last Yankee off of Snodgrass Hill, and in twenty minutes York's Georgia Battery, under Lieutenant
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Everitt, was on top of the hill pouring grape and shells into the demoralized and retreating ranks of Yankees as they passed down the northern slope of Snodgrass Hill in the direction of Rossville Gap. When that great blue mass was seen sliding down the north slope of the hill, leaving behind them their killed, wounded, and artillery, there was a rebel yell that went up from Bragg's army that echoed and reechoed until it filled the valleys and shook the mountains, the like of which has never been heard since Joshua encompassed the city of Jericho, seven times, and halted the children of Israel and faced them inwards to the city, and ordered his priests to blow the trumpets, and Israel raised a yell that shook the walls of Jericho until they fell to the ground. So your writer would not have been surprised if he had heard a few days after the taking of Snodgrass Hill by the Confederates, that the spires on the churches in Chattanooga, ten miles away, had fallen from the effects of that glorious yell.
How better can a soldier die Than fighting fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his God ?
There is nothing on this earth as grand and inspiring, raising the soul of the Confederate soldier to those heavenly heights as the life-stirring strains of " Dixie " and that soul-bursting rebel yell.
At the close of the battle, on the night of the 20th, Mr. C. A. Dana, the distinguished editor and assistant secretary of War under Mr. Lincoln, telegraphed to Washington "that Chicka- mauga is as fatal a name in our history as Bull Run."
General Rosecrans arrived at Chattanooga about 4 o'clock on the evening of the 20th, and a few minutes later McCook and Crittenden arrived. Garfield, his chief-of-staff, who had left him about 3 P. M. at Rossville Gap, and went to Thomas, now sent Rosecrans a dispatch that Thomas and Grainger were still hold- ing out. Immediately he swung it around over his head and said : "Thank God, the day is not yet lost," and hustled Mc- Cook and Crittenden out of Chattanooga back to Rossville Gap to halt the stragglers there, and form them in line. After dark
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Thomas and Grainger fell back to Rossville Gap and lined up to the right and left of the gap on Missionary Ridge, three miles south of Chattanooga ; and on the 21st the bulk of the Federal army moved into the trenches about Chattanooga that Bragg had thrown up before he evacuated.
Now the great battle of Chickamauga had been fought, and both Rosecrans and Bragg had their "ifs" to explain to their respective governments. Rosecrans says if that gap had not been left in his line on the 20th, between Wood and Brannon, he could have won a glorious victory ; and "if " his government had furnished him more cavalry, results would have been differ- ent ; and "if " Bragg had not fought with largely superior num- bers, he could have whipped him anyhow."
Any one who knows the Yankee character, knows what this last " if " means, viz., that whenever they got whipped, the Rebels always had largely superior numbers.
This is surely a compliment to the Confederate generals, for them to marshall a superior force on any field, while the Confed- eracy had only about 600,000 soldiers, and the Federal Govern- ment had 2,859,000, or five to one.
Now General Bragg had his "ifs" to explain to his Govern- ment, and says that "if his order had been obeyed in McLe- more's Cove, Baird's and Negley's divisions would have had no easy time ; and if Polk and Walker had attacked the Twenty- first Corps on its way out of Chattanooga to Lee and Gordon's Mills, on the 13th, it would have been crushed : and "if " Polk, who was in command of the right wing, had not spent the night of the 19th south of the Chickamauga, away from his troops that were lying in line of battle, and the enemy only a few hun- dred yards away, and had attacked the enemy at day dawn, as ordered by the commanding general, in person, Rosecran's army would never have stopped at Chattanooga.
In the two days' battle of Chickamauga, Rosecrans's reports show that he had present for duty 70, 162 officers and men, and that he lost 1,657 killed, 9,756 wounded, 4,757 captured, making a total of 16,170, including the loss of four Generals, Lytle, Hegg, Baldwin and King.
General Bragg's official report shows that the Confederates
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lost three Brigadier-Generals, viz., Smith, Helm, and Deshler, and Adams, Gregg and McNair wounded. Major-General Hood lost a leg on the 20th. There were captured fifty-one pieces of artillery, fifteen thousand stands of small arms, and eight thou- sand prisoners.
The organization of the Army of Tennessee from General Bragg's official reports of September 19 and 20, 1863, will show that Lieutenant-General Polk's Corps, which was Hill's Corps after Polk took command of the right wing, consisted of -
Cheatham's Division : -
Brigadier-General Jackson's Brigade : Second Georgia Bat- talion, Fifth Georgia Regiment, and the Fifth and Eighth Mis- sissippi Regiments.
Preston Smith's Brigade : Eleventh, Twelfth, Forty-seventh, Thirteenth, One Hundred and Fifty-fourth and Twenty-ninth Tennessee Regiments, and Dawson's Battalion.
Maney's Brigade : First and Twenty-seventh Tennessee Regi- ments, Fourth Tennessee Confederate Regiment, Sixth and Ninth Tennessee Regiments, and the Twenty-fourth Tennessee Battalion.
Wright's Brigade: Eighth, Sixteenth, Twenty-eighth, Thirty- eighth, Fifty-first and Fifty-second Tennessee Regiments.
Strahl's Brigade : Fourth, Fifth, Nineteenth, Twenty-fourth, Thirty-first and Thirty-Third Tennessee Regiments.
Attached to Cheatham's Division were the following batteries: Carnes's Tennessee, Scoggins's Georgia, Scott's Tennessee, and Smith's and Stanford's Mississippi batteries.
Hill's Corps, Cleburne's Division : -
Wood's Brigade : Sixteenth, Thirty-third, Forty-fifth, and Eighteenth Alabama Regiments, Thirty-second and Forty-fifth Mississippi Regiments, and the Fifteenth Mississippi Battalion.
Polk's Brigade : First Arkansas, Third and Fifth Confederate, and Second, Thirty-fifth and Forty-eighth Tennessee Regiments.
Deshler's Brigade : Nineteenth Alabama, Twenty-fourth Ar- kansas, and the Sixth and Tenth Texas Regiments, and Fif- teenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Twenty-fourth Texas Cavalry Regiments dismounted.
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Calvert's Arkansas, Douglass' Texas, and Semple's Alabama Batteries. -
Breckinridge's Division : -
Helm's Brigade : Forty-first Alabama, and Second, Fourth, Sixth, and Ninth Kentucky Regiments.
Adam's Brigade: Thirty-second Alabama, and the Thirteenth, Twentieth, Sixteenth, Twenty-fifth, and Nineteenth Louisiana Regiments, and the Fourteenth Louisiana Battalion.
Stovall's Brigade : First, Third, and Fourth Florida, and the Forty-seventh Georgia and Sixtieth North Carolina Regi- ments.
Cobb's, and Graves's Kentucky, Mebane's Tennessee, and Slocum's Louisiana Batteries.
Walker's Division : -
Gist's Brigade: Forty-sixth Georgia Regiment, Eighth Georgia Battalion, and the Sixteenth and Twenty-Fourth South Carolina Regiments.
Ector's Brigade : Stone's Alabama and Pound's Mississippi Sharpshooters, Twenty-ninth North Carolina Regiment, and the Ninth, Tenth, and Thirty-second Texas Cavalry Regiments dis- mounted.
Wilson's Brigade : Twenty-fifth, Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth Georgia Regiments, and the First Georgia and Fourth Louisiana Battalions.
- Ferguson's South Carolina and Howell's Georgia Batteries. Liddel's Division of two Brigades : -
Govan's Brigade : Second, Fifteenth, Fifth, Thirteenth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Arkansas Regiments, and the First Louisi- ana Regulars.
Walthall's Brigade: Twenty-fourth, Twenty-seventh, Twenty- ninth, Thirtieth and Thirty-fourth Mississippi Regiments.
Fowler's Alabama, and Warren's Mississippi Batteries.
Forrest's Cavalry Corps.
Armstrong's Division : -
Col. James T. Wheeler's Brigade: Third Arkansas, Second Kentucky, Sixth Tennessee Regiments, and the Eighteenth Tennessee Battalion.
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Dibrell's Brigade : Fourth, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth and Elev- enth Tennessee Regiments, and Shaw's and Hamilton's Ten- nessee Battalions.
Hoggin's and Morton's Tennessee Batteries.
This was Forrest's old brigade.
Pegram's Division : -
Davidson's Brigade : First and Sixth Georgia, and Sixth North Carolina Regiments, Rucker's Tennessee Legion, Twelfth and Sixteenth Tennessee Battalions, and Huwald's Tennessee Battery.
Scott's Brigade : Tenth Confederate, First Louisiana, Second and Fifth Tennessee Regiments, a detachment of Jno. H. Mor- gan's command and Robinson's Louisiana Battery.
Polk's Corps, or the right wing of the army numbered 22,471.
LEFT WING.
Lieut-Genl. Longstreet commanding.
Hindman's Division :-
Anderson's Brigade : Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, Forty- first and Forty-fourth Mississippi Regiments, Ninth Mississippi Battalion and Garrity's Alabama Battery.
Dea's Brigade : Nineteenth, Twenty-second, Twenty-fifth, Thirty-ninth and Fiftieth Alabama Regiments, Seventeenth Alabama Battalion and Dent's Alabama Battery.
Manigault's Brigade : Twenty-fourth, Twenty-eighth, Thirty- fourth Alabama, and the Tenth and Nineteenth South Carolina Regiments and Walter's Alabama Battery.
Buckner's Corps : -
Stewart's Division was on the right on the 19th, Col. Jno. G. Fulton commanding First Brigade : Seventeenth, Twenty- second, Twenty-third, Twenty-fifth and Forty-fourth Tennessee Regiments.
Bate's Brigade : Fifty-eighth Alabama and Thirty-seventh Georgia Regiments, Fourth Georgia Battalion, and the Fifteenth and Thirty-seventh (consolidated), and Twentieth Tennessee Regiments.
Brown's Brigade : Eighteenth, Twenty-sixth, Thirty-second
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and Forty-fifth Tennessee Regiments, and the Twenty-third- Tennessee Battalion.
Clayton's Brigade : Eighteenth, Thirty-sixth, and Thirty- eighth Alabama Regiments.
First Arkansas, Dawson's Georgia, York's Georgia (this bat- ' tery of four guns fired four hundred and twenty-eight rounds), and the Eufaula, Ala., Batteries.
The Eufaula Battery of Bate's Brigade fired the first and last guns of this great Battle, and York's Georgia Battery, under Lieut. W. S. Everett of Clayton's Brigade, was on top of Snod- grass Hill within twenty minutes after the Yankees were dis- lodged, and was pouring shot and shell into their retreating ranks as they hastened towards Rossville Gap. Both of these batteries belonged to Stewart's Division.
Preston's Division : -
Gracie's Brigade : Forty-third and First Alabama Regiments, Second, Third and Fourth Alabama Battalions, and the Sixty- third Tennessee Regiment.
Kelley's Brigade : Sixty-fifth Georgia, Fifth Kentucky, Fifty- eighth North Carolina, and the Sixty-third Virginia Regiments.
Trigg's Brigade : First Florida Cavalry Regiment, dismounted, Sixth and Seventh Florida Infantry, and the Fifty-fourth Vir- ginia Regiment.
Jeffries's Virginia, and Peeble's and Watkin's Georgia, Bat- teries.
Bushrod Johnson's Division : -
Gregg's Brigade : Third, Tenth, Thirtieth, Forty-first, and Fiftieth Tennessee Regiments, First Tennessee Battalion, Seventh Texas Regiment and Bledsoe's Missouri Battery.
McNair's Brigade: First and Third Arkansas dismounted Rifles, Twenty-fifth Arkansas dismounted Regiment, Fourth and Thirty- first Arkansas dismounted Battalions, Thirtieth North Carolina Regiment and Culpepper's South Carolina Battery.
HOOD'S CORPS OF TWO DIVISIONS.
McLaw's Division : -
Kershaw's Brigade: Second, Third, Seventh, Eighth, and Fifteenth South Carolina Regiments, and the Third South Carolina Battalion.
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· Humphrey's Brigade : Thirteenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Twenty-first Mississippi Regiments.
Wolford's Brigade : Sixteenth, Eighteenth, and Twenty- fourth Georgia Regiments, Third Georgia Battalion, and Cobb's and Phillipp's Legions.
Bryan's Brigade : Tenth, Fiftieth, Fifty-first and Fifty-third Georgia Regiments.
Law's Division, Hood's Corps : -
Jenkin's Brigade : First South Carolina Regiment, Second South Carolina Rifles, Fifth and Sixth South Carolina Regi- ments, Hampton's South Carolina Legion, and Palmetto South Carolina Sharpshooters.
Colonel Sheffield's Brigade : Fourth, Fifteenth, Forty-fourth, Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth Alabama Regiments.
Robertson's Brigade : Third Arkansas, and the First, Fourth and Fifth Texas Regiments.
Anderson's Brigade : Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Eleventh and Fifty-ninth Georgia Regiments.
Benning's Brigade : Second, Fifteenth, Seventeenth and Twentieth Georgia Regiments.
Longstreet brought with him from the army of Northern Virginia, Hood's two divisions and the following six batteries :
Flicking's South Carolina, Jordon's Virginia, Moody's Louis- iana, and Parker's, Taylor's and Woodfork's Virginia Batteries.
All of these batteries and the three brigades of Wolford, Bryan and Jenkins did not arrive in time for the engagement. Bragg's Reserve Artillery consisted of -
Baxter's Tennessee, Darden's Mississippi, Cobb's Alabama and McCont's Florida Batteries.
Wheeler's Cavalry attached to left wing consisted of -
Wharton's Division : -
Col. C. C. Crew's Brigade : Malone's Alabama, and the Second, Third and Fourth Alabama Regiments.
Harrison's Brigade : Third Confederate and Third Kentucky Regiments, Fourth Tennessee (Paul Anderson's) Regiment, Eighth and Eleventh Texas Regiments, and White's Tennessee Battery.
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Martin's Division : -
John T. Morgan's Brigade : First, Third and Fifty-first Ala- bama Regiments and the Eighth Confederate Regiment.
Russell's Brigade : Fourth Alabama and First Confederate Regiments and Wiggin's Arkansas Battery.
This gave Longstreet, who commanded the left wing, 22,982, and that under Polk numbered 22,471. This gave Bragg a fighting force, on the second day, of 45,453. Of this number of troops Tennessee furnished 46 infantry regiments and 9 of cavalry, 8 batteries, 8 battalions and 3 escort companies, making a total of 74 organizations.
As to the part that the Twentieth Tennessee took in this great battle, I will refer to the report of Major-General A. P. Stewart, whose division was composed of the brigades of Clayton, Brown and Bate .* Clayton carried into action 1,383, and lost 634, a loss of 42 per cent. Brown carried in 1,320, lost 480, 33 per cent. Bate carried in 1,053 men and 132 officers, losing 7 officers and 59 men men killed, 541 officers and men wounded, making a loss of 607 out of a total of 1, 187, or 51 per cent.
I will also refer to the official report of Brigadier-General Bate, of whose brigade the Twentieth Tennessee was a component part.
REPORT of BRIGADIER GENERAL WILLIAM B. BATE. HEADQUARTERS BATE'S BRIGADE, STEWART'S DIVISION.
Major : I have the honor to submit the following report of the participation had by my brigade in the late three days' battle of the Chickamauga, comprising the 18th, 19th, and 20th ult .:-
Having been ordered to advance, take possession, and hold Thedford's Ford, but not to bring on a general engagement unless indispensable to the accomplishment of these objects, I moved my command at once at a double-quick, and occupied a wooded eminence commanding it, and placed my battery (the Eufaula Light Artillery) on a cleared hill to the front and left, which overlooked the enemy, and within a few hundred yards of his position. The attack, in which the Fourth Georgia Batta-
* This report will be found in Records of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol. XXX, Part II, from which General Bate's report is taken.
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lion Sharpshooters (Major Caswell) and my artillery alone were engaged, was brisk and spirited.
In the meantime, however, the entire brigade was subjected to a severe shelling from the enemy just above Alexander's Bridge and across the Chickamauga, by which one man was killed and five or six wounded. After a few well-directed shots from my battery, which Captain Oliver placed promptly in position, the enemy gave way. This was the opening fight of the battle of the Chickamauga.
We bivouaced near the camp of the enemy commanding the two fords-Thedford's and the Bend Ford-where I crossed my command next morning at an early hour, and formed line of battle in rear of Brigadier-Generals Brown's and Clayton's brigades, the whole under command of Major-General Stewart. We moved in this order, bearing to the right through a cornfield and woodland nearly two miles, at which point we were halted for some hours. Here my artillery was put forward to develop the enemy's position, which it did, drawing shell and round shot upon our lines, wounding three or four of my men. We were moved hence by the right flank near to a point where heavy volleys of musketry were heard, and thence by the left flank in line of battle some 300 or 400 yards, and halted in the same rela- tive position we had occupied during the early part of the day, mine being in the rear line of battle.
At 3 P. M. Brigadier-Generals Clayton's and Brown's brigades successively engaged the enemy. In about thirty minutes I was ordered by Major-General Stewart to advance, General Clayton having withdrawn ; and Brown also passed to the rear. My line of battle was organized by placing Caswell's battalion of sharp- shooters (Fourth Georgia) on the right, and in succession from that wing were the Twentieth Tennessee, Col. T. B. Smith ; Thirty-Seventh Georgia, Col. A. F. Rudler ; Fifty-eighth Ala- bama, Col. Bushrod Jones ; the Fifteenth and Thirty-seventh Tennessee, Col. R. C. Tyler, constituting the supporting line. I had thrown out no skirmishers. The whole command moved forward with spirit and zeal, engaging the enemy hotly before it had proceeded two hundred yards, his line extending in front of and to the right and left of us. A battery in front of my ex-
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treme right played constantly and with terrible effect upon that wing until my right pressed within less than fifty paces of it, when it was rapidly removed to prevent capture. Another re- vealed its hydra-head immediately in the rear of this, supported by a second line, hurling its death-dealing missiles more destruc- tively, if possible, upon our still advancing but already thinned ranks. Having driven the first line back upon its support, a fresh battery and infantry were brought to play upon my right, which by its advanced position had become subject to an enfilade fire, and gave way, but not until Major Caswell, Colonel Smith, and Colonel Rudler, the three officers commanding, respectively, the three right battalions, were wounded, and at least 25 per cent. of their number killed and wounded.
When the right gave way the enemy sought to follow it up, and pressed his sharpshooters beyond the right flank, who, find- ing it well aligned and in the attitude of resistance, precipitated themselves back and out of reach. The men were easily rallied and promptly re-formed a short distance in the rear of the point to which they had advanced. In this dash the enemy captured one of my pieces and one of my couriers. It needed, however, but a moment to retake the piece, which was handsomely done. In this contest my right retook the battle flag of the Fifty-first Tennessee Regiment, General Wright's brigade, which but a moment before had been wrested from them by superior numbers and flank movements of the enemy. I was rejoiced to deprive him of his trophy so recently won, and to return it to its gallant owners, hallowed as it is by its baptism in the blood of Shiloh, Perryville, and Murfreesboro.
My left in the meantime, composed of the Fifty-eighth Ala- bama, Colonel Jones, and the Fifteenth and Thirty-seventh Ten- nessee Regiments (consolidated), Colonel Tyler, not being so much harassed by the enfilade fire from the right, pressed steadily forward in fine order, driving the enemy, who contested every inch of ground with dogged and persistent obstinacy until forced beyond the Chattanooga road and several hundred yards back into the woods, thus deranging his compact lines and breaking his centre. In this charge Colonel Tyler captured three guns,
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and. Colonel Jones participated with the Fifty-eighth Alabama, for particulars of which I refer to their reports.
It being nearly night, and having advanced so far beyond the enemy's lines as to make them liable to a flank movement, they returned from farther pursuit to the point of the battle-field to which I had ordered the Eufaula Light Artillery, and where General Clayton and I were reforming our shattered commands, Colonel Tyler bringing with him his captured guns, and Colonel Jones in such fine order as to elicit my public commendation. Owing to a movement of the enemy to our right, the front of General Clayton's command was changed by Major-General Stewart to meet an expected attack from that source, and my line was left fronting the Chattanooga road. General Brown's command subsequently intervened. Thus we bivouaced for the night upon the field of carnage, enveloped by the smoke of bat- tle and surrounded by the dead of friends and foe.
Sunday morning found us in the line assumed the night pre- vious, and under the order of Major-General Stewart I moved my command by the right flank 500 or 600 yards, and took posi- tion forward and on the right of General Brown's brigade ; but in forming the line was compelled to retire the right to an angle of about forty-five degrees on account of the proximity of the enemy located to my right oblique. Caswell's battalion of sharp- shooters, under command of Lieut. Joel Towers (Capt. Benjamin M. Turner having been dangerously wounded the evening before), was thrown forward and deployed at right angles with my right, to guard against a repetition of the movement of the previous evening (to turn that flank, to which we were liable), there being at that time no force sufficiently near to intervene.
Having assumed this line of battle, I had a temporary barri- cade of logs hastily constructed, which gave partial protection against the shower of grape, canister, and shell which continu- ously and most angrily saluted us. During the time we were subjected to this ordeal several men and officers were killed and wounded, yet no restiveness or other evidences of demoralization was manifested.
At about 9 A. M. the brigade of General Deshler was placed upon my right, prolonging the line and observing the same incli-
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nation to the rear. Soon thereafter I received notice that General Woods' brigade was in my front, and that the general movement would be a successive one by brigades commencing on the right; and being ordered by Major-General Stewart to follow up the movements of General Deshler, after waiting under a severe and incessant fire of artillery until about II A. M., I com- municated to General Stewart that no movement on my right had taken place ; that General Deshler had been killed, and de- sired to know if I should longer remain inactive. About this time there was firing in my front, and soon thereafter General Woods' command came back, passing over my line. I was then ordered by Major-General Stewart to advance and attack. My. command received the order with a shout, and moved upon the foe at a rapid gait. The battalion of sharpshooters was ordered to maintain its position at right angles to the line, and check, if possible (if not, to delay), any movements in that direction, giving the earliest notice of the same. My right, as upon the evening previous, became hotly engaged almost the instant it as- sumed the offensive. It was subjected to a most galling fire of grape and musketry from my right oblique and front, cutting down with great fatality the Twentieth Tennessee and Thirty- seventh Georgia at every step, until they drove the enemy behind his defenses, from which, without support either of artillery or infantry, they were unable to dislodge him. General Deshler's brigade not having advanced, I called on Major-General Cle- burne, who was near my right and rear, for assistance ; but he having none at his disposal which could be spared, I was com- pelled to retire that wing of my brigade or sacrifice it in uselessly fighting thrice its numbers, with the advantage of the hill and breastworks against it. I did so in good order, and without in- decent haste, and aligned it first in front, and then placed it in rear of our flimsy defences. My left (the Fifty-eighth Alabama and Fifteenth and Thirty-seventh Tennessee, the latter under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Frayser, Colonel Tyler having been wounded), being farther from the enemy's line than my right, did not so soon become engaged; and not being, at this time, subjected to so severe a cross-fire, proceeded steadily on, and drove the enemy behind his works, which had been constructed the night
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