USA > Tennessee > History of the Twentieth Tennessee regiment volunteer infantry, C.S.A > Part 24
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previous on the very spot we had driven him from, and main- tained his position with a dogged tenacity until the Twentieth Tennessee and Thirty-seventh Georgia were put in position be- hind the barricade, and the battalion of sharpshooters drawn in. The artillery of the enemy had ceased to play upon us, except at slow intervals, and a part of their ['Tyler's and Jones'] commands having already returned, I dispatched Lieutenant Blanchard, of my staff, to ascertain their situation, who reported that he met them returning with the balance of their command in good order. I placed them in position and awaited orders.
I am unable to give as accurate an account of my left as of my right, for the reason that the right became first engaged, and the commanders of the three right battalions having been wounded the evening previous, devolving the commands on junior officers, I felt that my personal services were most needed there, which prevented me witnessing so as to give in detail the incidents con- nected with that portion of the field. I found, however, their dead in the breast-works of the enemy, which is the highest evi- dence that can be afforded of what they did.
In this fight my command lost 30 per cent killed and wounded, in addition to the heavy loss of the evening before.
After a short respite, Major-General Stewart ordered my com- mand (which still held its position in the front line) to the left, where it would be more secure from the artillery missiles of the enemy on my right. Here we remained until about 5 P. M., when I was ordered to form in rear of General Clayton and join him in taking the batteries and breast-works on our right, from which we had suffered so heavily during the day. I changed front forward on my right battalion, and, together with General Clayton's brigade, soon ran over the fortifications, driving the enemy in confusion and capturing a number of prisoners. In this charge Captain Tanksley commanded the Fifteenth and Thirty-seventh Tennessee, Lieutenant-Colonel Frayser having been wounded. The Eufaula Light Artillery, Captain Oliver, had kept close to my infantry, and notwithstanding the obstruction of a dense wood, took position inside the fortifications, and opened a rapid and destructive fire upon the retreating foe until the curtain of night closed upon the scene. I claim for this bat-
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tery the honor of opening on Friday evening and closing on Sun- day evening the battle of Chickamauga.
My brigade went into the fight with muskets in the hands of one-third of my men, but after the first charge Saturday even- ing, every man was supplied with a good Enfield rifle and ammu- nition to suit, which was used with effect on their original owners the next day. The dead and wounded over which we passed in driving them back on Saturday and Sunday gave an earnest of the telling effect produced upon them in both days' fight. Be- sides arming itself with Enfield rifles, a detail from my com- mand, under supervision of my ordnance officer, James E. Rice, gathered upon the field and conveyed to the ordnance train about 2,000 efficient guns. The piece captured by Colonel Tyler and those in which Colonel Jones participated in capturing were taken to the rear and turned over to proper officers.
My command entered the fight Friday evening with 1,055 guns and 30 provost guard and a fair complement of officers, out of which number it lost 7 officers and 59 men killed, and 541 wounded, 61 of whom were officers; making a total of 607. It is seen that every field officer in the brigade excepting three were wounded.
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For further particulars allow me to respectfully refer to the re- ports of the commanders of battalions and battery, which are herewith transmitted.
I cannot close this report without noticing the distinguished services rendered, unworthy as the tribute may be, by my field officers,-Colonels Tyler, Smith, Rudler, and Jones; Lieutenant- Colonels Smith, Inser, and Frayser ; and Majors Caswell, Wall, Kendrick, Shy, and Thornton - to each of whom is due the highest meed of praise. It would be invidious to make distinc- tions where each has played his part so well.
Colonels Rudler and Smith and Major Caswell were painfully, the last two seriously, wounded at the head of their respective commands, early in the engagement of Saturday, and compelled to retire from the field, thus devolving the command of the Twentieth Tennessee on Major Shy, the Thirty-seventh Georgia on Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, the battalion of sharpshooters on
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Lieutenant Hightower, each of whom did his duty gallantly and nobly throughout the conflict.
Colonel Tyler, Lieutenant-Colonels Inser and Frayser, Majors Wall, Kendrick, and Thornton were wounded, from which they suffered considerably [the last named officer prostrated by the explosion of a shell], still remained at the post of duty, bearing themselves with distinguished gallantry.
To each of my staff - Major Winchester [who, notwithstand- ing his leg was badly hurt from the fall of his horse when shot Friday evening, continued in the field until the close of the fight], Lieutenants Blanchard and Bate- I am indebted for their hearty co-operation and prompt execution of my orders, notwith- standing each was unhorsed by shots from the enemy. Also to James E. Rice, brigade ordnance officer, am I indebted for the prompt discharge of his duties. But to none are my thanks more signally due or more cordially awarded than to my gallant young Adjutant, Capt. W. C. Yancey, who, while cheering and encouraging my right wing in its desperate charge on Sunday, received a fearful wound, shattering his foot and compelling him to retire from the field.
I take pleasure, also, in adding my testimony, humble as it may be, to the hearty co-operation of the two gallant brigades of Stewart's division [Generals Clayton's and Brown's] in every charge in which it was the fortune of my command to engage.
Major-General Stewart will accept my thanks, as a soldier's tribute, for his polite and genial bearing and personal assistance in the thickest of the fight, the time when I felt I much needed it.
While I recount the services of the living, I can not pass un -. remembered the heroic dead - the cypress must be interwoven with the laurel. The bloody field attested the sacrifice of many a noble spirit in the fierce struggle, the private soldier vieing with the officer in deeds of high daring and distinguished courage.
While the " River of Death " shall float its sluggish current to the banks of the beautiful Tennessee, and the night wind chant its solemn dirges over their soldiers' graves, their names, enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen, will be held in
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grateful remembrance as the champions and defenders of their country who had sealed their devotion with their blood on one of the most glorious battle-fields of our revolution.
I am, major, most respectfully, your obediednt servant, WM. B. BATE, Brigadier-General. Maj. R. A. Hatcher, Assistant Adjutant-General.
At the battle of Chickamauga, General Bate had three horses shot under him. The first was his old sorrel that carried him into the first charge on Saturday the 19th. General Bate had his black mare brought up and mounted her and was soon again in the hottest of the fight with crutch in hand, directing and urging his men forward until they broke the Federal right cen- ter and forced that part of the line back for more than one mile across the Rossville road, which was the bone of contention.
In this last effort, some 300 yards in advance of where the old sorrel was killed, the game little mare and her gallant rider went down together. The mare was killed, but the General was not touched.
General Bate next secured a mouse-colored artillery horse from the Eufaula [Alabama] Battery that was attached to his brigade, and mounted him and this horse was killed the next day-Sun- day, Sept. 20th, close in front of the Yankee's breast works over which Bate and his brigade were the first to charge.
One of General Bate's horses was killed by a cannon ball. It occurred while his brigade was lying in line of battle under a heavy artillery fire waiting orders from Gen. A. P. Stewart ; the order was soon brought by Maj. John C. Thompson, Stewart's Inspector General, who on reaching the general, raised his hand to salute and began delivering the order, when a cannon ball passed through General Bate's horse and both went to the ground. General Bate struggled to his feet by the aid of his crutch, and found the cool and daring Thompson in statu quo with his hand still in the position of salute, when he finished de- livering his order, completing the partly finished sentence that was so rudely interrupted by the cannon ball, which evidently had, or took the right of way, regardless of common courtesy.
General Bate was dependent on his crutch from the effects of
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wounds that he had received at the battles of Shiloh and Hoov- er's Gap. Major Thompson entered the service as Second Lieu- tenant of Company C, Twentieth Tennessee Regiment.
Three days after the battle, President Davis with a guide, went over this "Field of Death," and as they passed over the ground where Stewart's division fought on Saturday, he saw the trees and fences badly torn to pieces, and the dead lying thick. In the midst of this carnage he saw a dead horse with officer's trapping on. Mr. Davis asked the guide whose horse that was. The guide said that it was Brigadier-General Bate's of Tennessee. Three or four hundred yards farther on they came upon the little black mare with officer's trappings on, and the President asked whose horse that was, and was told that it was Brigadier-General Bate's of Tennessee. When they had gone some distance to the front, where Bate's brigade took the Federal works on Sunday, they saw the mouse colored horse lying close up to the Yankee breast-works, and he again asked whose horse that was, and for the third time the guide said that it was the horse of General Bate of Tennessee. The President remarked that General Bate of Tennessee must be a dashing officer.
In a short time after the battle of Chicakmauga, Brigadier- General Bate of Infantry, was offered a Major-General's com- mission of cavalry, which he declined, but accepted the rank of Major General of Infantry.
The following soldiers, of the Twentieth Tennessee Regiment, distinguished themselves on the field of Chickamauga, Sept. 19 and 20, 1863, and were recommended for promotion : -
Sergeant W. W. Evans, Company A.
Sergeant J. C. Irvin, Company E.
Sergeant A. L. Fuqua, Company I.
Sergeant J. J. Ellis, Company I.
Private B. F. Harrison, Company F.
In the battle of Chickamauga this regiment carried into the engagement thirty-one officers and one hundred and fifty-two men, total one hundred and eighty-three, and lost in killed and wounded ninety-eight. The company to which I belonged (B), went into the battle with three officers and twenty-three men, had four men killed, one officer and fourteen men wounded;
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total, nineteen killed and wounded out of twenty-six. This regiment was raked by an enfilading fire on both days' engage- ments.
After the battle of Chickamauga, Rosecrans, with the army of the Cumberland, about 45,000 strong (the balance of his 70,000 had been killed, wounded, captured or deserted), was behind his entrenchments at Chattanooga, and Bragg moved up at once and invested the place by throwing up a line of earth-works to the right on Missionary Ridge, and extending his lines to the left and west across Lookout Valley, on across Lookout Mountain in the direction of Bridgeport. Longstreet at this time occupied Bragg's left as far as Bridgeport, with his pickets. It was at this time that Bragg made his fatal mistake by halting his army, although he was still inferior in numbers to Rosecrans, the morale of his army was good; on the contrary, the Federal Army was badly demoralized, and four of its leaders, viz., Rose- crans, Thomas, McCook and Crittenden, three of whom, viz., Rosecrans, McCook and Crittenden, were constantly ducking their heads for fear that a blow would be dealt from Washington that would decapitate them for their. conduct on the field of Chickamauga. I would like to say this of General Rosecrans, as a soldier in the line from the opposite side, from the time that General Rosecrans took command of the Army of the Cumber- land up to this time, I believed that the Federal army did not have a more conscientious and patriotic soldier in it, although C. A. Dana and Halleck were trying to retire him. This is what C. A. Dana wrote from Chattanooga, Oct. 12, 1863, which can be found in Series I., Vol. xxx., page 215, part I, of the Records of the Rebellion, at Washington : -
"It is my duty to declare, while few persons exhibit more estimable social qualities, I have never seen a public man posses- sing talent with less administrative power, less clearness and steadiness in difficulty, and greater practical incapacity than General Rosecrans."
This letter of Dana's, heaped on General Rosecrans after his other troubles, resulted in an order from Washington dated Oct. 16, 1863, superceding General Rosecrans in the command of the Army of the Cumberland, by Major-General George H. Thomas.
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General Bragg, about this time, prefered charges against Lieu- tenant-General Polk, and President Davis had come to the Army of Tennessee for the purpose of consulting with Bragg and reviewing his army.
President Davis relieved General Polk from the command of his corps under Bragg, and assigned him to the command of the department of Mississippi and Louisana, and Major-General Cheatham was assigned to the command of Polk's old corps. General Thomas was only in command of the Federal Army a few days, when the armies of the Cumberland, Ohio, and Missis- sippi, were all merged into the department of the Mississippi, and Gen. U. S. Grant put in charge ; (the world knows Grant's way of fighting, that is, to accumulate enough men and material to overpower his opponent by brute force); and he now began reinforcing the army at Chattanooga.
The authorities at Washington ordered Burnside with an army of 25,000 to hold Knoxville, Sherman and Hulbert were ordered up from Grant's old army at Vicksburg to reinforce him at Chattanooga, and Hooker was on his way by rail from the east with the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps. Reinforcements con- tinued to pour into Chattanooga until Grant said he had enough. General Bragg, after the Battle of Chickamauga, had before Chattanooga his three corps, viz :-
Polk's Corps 10,313
Longstreet's Corps 15,522
Hill's Corps 10,307
Artillery . 2,704
Total 38,846
Wheeler's cavalry was in Middle Tennessee on raids most of the time, and Forrest had been sent into West Tennessee to recruit his command. About November 5th, Bragg sent Long- street with his corps of about 15,000 against Burnside, who was strongly entrenched in Knoxville 100 miles away. After Long- street had left, Bragg had only about 23,000 men to defend his line from the mouth of the Chickamauga on the east, to twelve miles west below Chattanooga, a total distance of 18 miles, while Grant had massed in and near Chattanooga, not less than 102,000 men.
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Bragg's army was now, Nov. 20th, on the top of Missionary Ridge, running down across Lookout Valley in a thin line with some scattering brigades on Lookout Mountain. Even after Longstreet had left for Knoxville, Grant thought it would be safer to wait an attack on Bragg until all of Sherman's army could get up.
General Grant had his immense army lined up for an attack as follows :
Sherman with five divisions was to cross the Tennessee River above the mouth of Chickamauga Creek, throw a pontoon bridge across the creek, and attack the east end of Missionary Ridge on the morning of Nov. 23.
General Thomas was in the center of Lookout Valley with "one half of the world." Hooker with his corps was to attack Bragg's pickets on Lookout Mountain and further west, while Howard and his corps was in reserve on the north bank of the river opposite the city of Chattanooga ready to cross on a pon- toon bridge, to reinforce either one of the three immense corps, either one of which would outnumber Bragg's entire army.
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Lieutenant-General Hardee had been restored to Bragg's Army and took command of [Cheatham's] Polk's old corps. Most of the fighting on and around Lookout Point was done, on the part of the Confederates, by Walthall's Mississippi Brigade, and it was Hooker's corps fighting this little brigade of about 1,200 strong, that Hooker has blown so much about as his " bat- tle above the clouds,,' which was nothing but a skirmish on the sides of Lookout Mountain, where the Confederate pickets were contending against at least ten to one.
On the 24th, Grant ordered Thomas, who was commanding his center, with the corps of Palmer, Grainger, and Howard to move on Bragg's center, which he did, and wrested from Bragg's thin line Orchard Knob.
It was on this occasion, when this immense body of soldiers moved on the Confederate picket line, one of the pickets, Dave Montgomery of the Twentieth Tennessee, ran back to report to his captain and said : " Captain, they are coming, they are com- ing, for I heard General Grant give the command : 'Attention world ! by nation's right, into line! WHEEL, March !'"
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The Tenneseeans mostly fought on the east end of Missionary Ridge near the tunnel where Sherman's host was driven back several times. Hardee, Breckinridge, and Stewart were Bragg's corps commanders in this engagement.
Suffice it to say that Bragg was defeated and his little army forced back, but General Grant was slow to claim a victory, for at 7 : 15 P. M. on the 25th, he telegraphed to Washington that he had " no idea of finding Bragg here on to-morrow," and it was two days afterwards before Grant's advance under Hooker, came up with Bragg's rear guard under Cleburne at Ringgold, Ga., twenty miles distant. Cleburne had 4,157 men, and Hooker had about 12,000 when he attacked Cleburne. The battle was short and bloody, and the repulse very decisive. Cle- . burne had twenty killed and 190 wounded ; Hooker had sixty- . five killed and 377 wounded. This put a stop to any further pursuit.
General Grant said that he lost in killed, wounded, and miss- ing 5,824, and that the Confederate loss was considerably less, but he captured 6, 142 prisoners, forty pieces of artillery, and 7,000 stands of small arms.
The Twentieth Tennessee Regiment in this engagement was in Col. R. C. Tyler's Brigade of Breckinridge's Division under command of Gen. W. B. Bate, whose official report, as found in the " War of the Rebellion - Oficial Records of the Union and Con- federate Armies," Series I, Vol. XXXI, part 2, pages 738-744, is hereby reproduced in full.
Report of Brig. Gen. William B. Bate, C. S. Army, commanding Breckinridge's division, Breckinridge's corps.
HEADQUARTERS BRECRINRIDGE'S DIVISION, Near Dalton, Ga., December 14, 1863.
COLONEL : In obedience to General Orders, No. 17, dated headquarters Breckinridge's corps, December 4, 1863, I have the honor to submit the following report of the part taken by Breck- inridge's division in the battle of Missionary Ridge on No- vember 25 :
The division I had the honor to command in the recent en-
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W. H. HILL, Co. A. See page 415.
HENRY WOLF, Co. A.
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gagement near Chattanooga, Tenn. [known as Breckinridge's di- vision], was composed of Brig. Gen. J. H. Lewis' [Kentucky] brigade, Brig. Gen. J. J. Finley's [Florida] brigade, and Bate's brigade, composed of Georgians and Tennesseeans, commanded by Col. R. C. Tyler, and a battalion of artillery commanded by Captain Cobb, and composed of Captain Cobb's, Slocomb's, and Mebane's batteries.
Lewis' brigade, by order from army headquarters, was with- drawn from Chickamauga Station on the evening of November 23 to a point on Missionary Ridge between the headquarters of General Bragg and Major-General Breckinridge. On the same evening, when the enemy advanced and took possession of the knoll, or Orchard Hill, capturing pickets on my right, the two brigades commanded by Brigadier-General Finley and Col. R. C. Tyler, then encamping at the base of Missionary Ridge in front of the headquarters of Major-General Breckinridge, were ordered under arms and in the trenches. Assistance being called for on the right, Colonel Tyler was ordered to report with his command to Brigadier-General Anderson as a temporary supporting force. He returned after dark to his designated place in the trenches, with the loss of I man killed and 3 wounded.
Thus located, the entire command remained during the 24th without participating in any of the operations of that day. In the early part of that night I was directed by Major-General Breckinridge to move my command to the summit of the ridge immediately in rear of the place I then occupied. This I did by sending the artillery, under command of Captain Slocomb, via Rossville, moving the infantry directly up the hill, as was con- templated in the order effecting the change.
About 12 o'clock at night I received an order from corps head- quarters to send Lewis' brigade to report to Major-General Cleburne, on the right, which was promptly done.
Daylight on the morning of the 25th found the two remaining brigades of the division on the crest of the ridge, Tyler's right resting at General Bragg's headquarters and Finley's prolonging the line to the left, while the enemy, like a huge serpent, un- coiled his massive folds into shapely lines in our immediate front. Fatigue parties were detailed and put to work on the defenses
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which Lewis had commenced the day previous, the command having stacked arms in line of battle a short distance back from the brow of the hill, secure from the shells that occasionally greeted us, and which met a prompt replication from Slocomb's and Cobb's batteries, the former near the center and the latter the right of my line; this reply annoyed and checked a line ad- vancing on our left oblique, and relieved from the peril of cap- ture our pickets yet in the advanced trenches. Requisition having been made, in accordance with orders from corps head- quarters, to furnish 180 men, with complement of field and line officers, as a picket force to confront the enemy along our imme- diate line, the First Florida Regiment (dismounted) Cavalry and the Fourth Florida Regiment, both small, were detailed for this duty on the 24th, and Major Wall, of the Fifteenth and Thirty- seventh Tennessee Regiments, as division officer of the day.
The pressure of the enemy on our front on the morning of the 25th ultimo forbade the relief of this force, and hence it re- mained on that day ; the officer of the day was substituted by Lieutenant-Colonel Badger, of the Fourth Florida. By repeated application from the front, representing the picket force there without support on the left, and remembering the misfortunes of the 23d in the picket line to our right, I was induced, upon con- sultation with the corps commander, to send the Seventh Florida Regiment as a reserve to our picket line. This little force, under the frown of such a horrid front, remained defiant, and, in obedi- ence to orders, maneuvered handsomely amid the peril of capture until, by order, it found a lodgment in the trenches at the foot of Missionary Ridge, with its right resting at Moore's house, on the left of the Sixtieth North Carolina Regiment [of Brigadier- General Reynolds' command], and its left adjoining the command of Brigadier-General Strahl at a new redoubt where the main line of defense diverges in the direction of Lookout Mountain. Knowing the disadvantages under which the line, strung out without reserves on the summit of the ridge, would labor in re- sisting with a plunging fire [no other could be given] the ad- vance of three strong lines, I ordered that it hold the trenches at all hazards. To give them up was to give the enemy a shelter behind them, if he chose to stop there, or to pursue rapidly up
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the hill, under cover of our retiring line, and gain a lodgment with but little resistance. I give the above interjectional sen- tence because the obedience of this order may have resulted in the capture of brave and obedient soldiers.
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