Chapter 14

“Washington, August 5, 1863.

“The orders for the advance of your army, and that its progress be reported daily, are peremptory.

H. W. Halleck.”

The thing required was stupendous, but the results show it was not impossible. Sixty miles from the Union army was the Tennessee River and Cumberland Mountains. Both run from north-east to south-west. There are in these lofty mountain ranges occasional gaps, through which the great east and west traffic of the country takes place. Chattanooga, in 1863 a town of fifteen hundred inhabitants, is in the most important of these gaps—the one through which passes the Tennessee River and an important net-work of railroads. The town is right in the mountains, twenty-five hundred feet above the sea-level, and was strongly fortified, and practically impregnable to assault. Along the north-west front of the town runs the river, which would have to be crossed by the Union forces. On the southern side of the river, below Chattanooga, are three parallel ranges: Sand Mountain, Lookout Mountain, and Pigeon Ridge,—the valleys between the ridges running up to the gap at Chattanooga. North-east of the town the ridges begin again, and the general configuration of the country is similar. Chattanooga was south-east from where the Union army was situated. The town was the lock, and Bragg’s army the key, to the door to Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas. To unlock this door was the task before the Army of the Cumberland.

But the problem of Rosecrans’s advance contained other complications beside the deep river, the lofty mountains, and the heavy fortifications. His army had to depend for its supplies upon Louisville, Kentucky, and the slender line of railway from that place. Every advance necessitated the weakening of his army by leaving strong detachments to preserve this communication; while, on the other hand, Bragg, already reinforced, would grow stronger all the time as he fell back on his reserves.

It is reasonable to suppose that the reason Garfield had urgedthe advance toward Chattanooga was that he saw a way in which it could be made. When the peremptory order came, a plan for the advance was projected, which, though vaster and more complicated than that of the Tullahoma campaign, contains the same elements, and shows itself to have been the work of the same mind. It was, indeed, a continuation of the same campaign. The plan was Rosecrans’s, because he adopted it. It was Garfield’s, because he originated it. The theory of the advance was to pass the enemy’s flank, march to his rear, threaten his line of supplies and compel him, by military strategy, to evacuate Chattanooga, as he had Shelbyville and Tullahoma. The door would thus be unlocked, and Bragg’s army driven from its last fortification to the open country. The details of the plan, as prepared by Garfield, will appear as the advance is explained. On August 16th began the movement of the army across the mountains toward the Tennessee River. The paramount effort in the manner of the advance was to deceive the enemy as to the real intention.

The army made the movement along three separate routes. Crittenden’s corps, forming the left, was to advance by a circuitous route, to a point about fifteen miles south-west of Chattanooga, and make his crossing of the Tennessee River there. Thomas, as our center, was to cross a little farther down stream, and McCook, thirty miles farther to the right. These real movements were to be made under the cover of an apparent one. About seven thousand men marched directly to the river shore, opposite Chattanooga, as if a direct attack were to be made on the place. “The extent of front presented, the show of strength, the vigorous shelling of the city by Wilder’s artillery, the bold expression of the whole movement, constituted a brilliant feint.” Bragg was deceived again. Absorbed in the operations in front of the place, he offered no resistance to the crossing of the Tennessee River by the main army.

By September 3d, the Union forces were all on the southern side of the Tennessee. Sand Mountain, the first of the ridges on that side of the river, rises abruptly from the bank. The repair and construction of roads occupied a little time; but Thomas and McCook pushed forward vigorously, and by the evening of the 6th of Septemberhad crossed Sand Mountain, and occupied the valley between it and the Lookout Range. Each of these corps had crossed the range at points opposite their crossings of the river, and, though in the same valley, were thirty-five miles apart. Crittenden, instead of crossing, turned to his left, and marched up the river bank toward Chattanooga, and crossed into the Lookout Valley by a pass near the town. On the 7th the next stage of the movement began, viz: the crossing of Lookout Range, in order to pass to the enemy’s rear, and, by endangering his supplies, compel him to abandon Chattanooga.

As soon as Bragg’s spy-glasses on Lookout Mountain, at Chattanooga, disclosed this movement, the order to evacuate the place was given. Shelbyville and Tullahoma were repeated, and on the morning of September 9th Crittenden marched in and took the place without the discharge of a gun. Strategy had again triumphed. The door was unlocked. The fall of Chattanooga was accomplished. The plan of the campaign had been carried out successfully. The North was electrified. The South utterly discomfited. Of the fall of Chattanooga, which, as we have shown, was but the continuation of the plan of the Tullahoma campaign, and was predicted by Garfield, even to the manner of its accomplishment, in his argument to Rosecrans in favor of an advance, Pollard, the Confederate historian, writes:

“Thus we were maneuvered out of this strategic stronghold. Two-thirds of our niter beds were in this region, and a large proportion of the coal which supplied our foundries. It abounded in the necessaries of life. It was one of the strongest mountain countries in the world; so full of lofty mountains that it has been not inaptly called the Switzerland of America. As the possession of Switzerland opened the door to the invasion of Italy, Germany, and France, so the possession of East Tennessee gave easy access to Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama.”

It is easy to see that behind this masterly strategy there was a masterly strategist. That man was Rosecrans’s chief of staff.

What had become of Bragg’s army of fifty thousand men? Rosecrans thought it was in full retreat. Halleck, Commander-in-chief,telegraphed from Washington, on the 11th, that information had been received thatBragg’s army was being used to reinforce Lee, a certain indication of retreat. The fact was that Lee was reinforcing Bragg. Halleck also telegraphed on the same day that reinforcements were coming to Rosecrans, and that it would be decided whether he shouldmove furtherinto Georgia and Alabama. This telegram completed the delusion of Rosecrans. He believed Bragg was many miles to the south. The campaign planned by Garfield had been completed. But Rosecrans made a fatal blunder. Instead of marching the corps of Thomas and McCook up the Lookout Valley to Chattanooga, and uniting them with Crittenden’s, he ordered the crossing of the range as a flank movement to be continued in order to intercept Bragg’s supposed retreat. Accordingly, on the 11th and 12th, Thomas recommenced to push over Lookout Mountain through a pass, twenty-five miles south-east of Chattanooga; and thirty-five miles beyond Thomas, McCook was doing the same thing.

With the Union army thus divided, Bragg was waiting his terrible opportunity. Instead of being in full retreat, many miles away, his entire army occupied Pigeon Ridge along the valley on the southern side of Lookout Range, into which Thomas and McCook must descend from the Mountain passes. Down the center of this valley runs a little river, theChickamauga. On the southern side of this stream, just opposite the pass from which Thomas’s corps of eighteen thousand devoted men would emerge, was concentrated the entire rebel army, waiting to destroy the isolated parts of the Army of the Cumberland in detail. The region occupied by Bragg was covered with dense forests, and he was further concealed by the low heights of Pigeon Ridge. When Thomas’s corps should have debouched from the pass through Lookout Range, and crossed the Chickamauga to ascend Pigeon Ridge, it was to be overwhelmed. Then McCook and Crittenden, sixty-five miles apart, would be separately destroyed. It fortunately happened that General Negley’s division descended from the gap on the 12th, and crossed the Chickamauga several miles in advance of the main body of Thomas’s corps. Unexpectedly,finding the enemy in great force on the opposite ridge, he swiftly withdrew, checked Thomas from further advance, and enabled the corps to take up an impregnable position in the gap through Lookout Range.

Thus foiled, Bragg then resolved to strike Crittenden, but eventually failed in this also. These failures gave the alarm. Bragg’s army was not ready for flight but for fight. It was now a matter of life and death for Rosecrans to concentrate his army before battle. Couriers were dispatched at break-neck speed to McCook, sixty-five miles away, and to Crittenden who had pushed on twenty miles beyond Chattanooga, in imaginary pursuit of Bragg. In some absolutely inexplicable way, Bragg failed for four days to make the attack. In those precious days, from September 13th to 17th, Garfield worked night and day, as chief of staff, to reach the scattered divisions, explore the shortest roads through those lofty mountains, and hasten that combination which alone could save the army from destruction. The suspense was terrible. But Bragg lost his opportunity by delaying too long. Heavy reinforcements for him were arriving, and he thought he was growing stronger. On the 17th and 18th Bragg was found to be moving his army up the valley toward Chattanooga, thus extending his right far beyond Rosecrans’s left, with the evident object of throwing his army upon the roads between the Union army and Chattanooga. To meet this, the Union army was moved in the same direction.

These movements of both armies up the valley, Bragg being south of the Chickamauga and Rosecrans north, were continued until the position was almost south of Chattanooga, instead of south-west. Parallel with our army, and immediately in its rear, were two roads leading to Chattanooga,—the one immediately in the rear known as the Lafayette or Rossville road; the other a little further back, as the Dry Valley road. At the junction of these roads, half way to Chattanooga, itself eight miles distant, was the town of Rossville. These roads were the prizes for which was to be fought one of the most bloody and awful battles of the war. The loss of either was equally fatal, but the main Rossville road,being the most exposed, was the principal object of the enemy’s attacks. The efforts of the enemy at first were to overlap or turn the left flank. This would have given them the Rossville road. Failing in this they drove the center back, the center and left turning like a door upon the hinge at the extreme left, until the line of battle was formed directly across the roads instead of parallel with them. This was accomplished during the second day’s fight.

General Thomas commanded the left wing, Crittenden the center, and McCook the right. The front of the army, facing almost east, was ranged up and down the valley from north to south, with the river in front and the roads in their rear. The whole valley was covered with dense forests, except where a farm had been made, and was full of rocky hills and ridges. So much concealed was one part of the valley from another, that the rebel army of fifty thousand men was formed in line of battle within a mile of the union lines on the same side of the river, without either army suspecting the other’s presence.

Such was the situation on the morning of September 19th, 1863. The world knows of the awful conflict which followed. General Garfield was located at Widow Glenn’s house, in the rear of the right wing. This was Rosecrans’s head-quarters. General Thomas located himself at Kelley’s farm-house in the rear of the left wing. For three nights General Garfield had not slept as many hours. Every anxious order, for the concentration of the army, had come from him; every courier and aid during those days and nights of suspense reported to him in person; before him lay his maps; each moment since the thirteenth he had known the exact position of the different corps and divisions of our vast army. Looking for the attack at any moment, it was necessary to constantly know the situation of the enemy among those gloomy mountains and sunless forests. When the red tide of battle rolled through the valley, each part of the line was ignorant of all the rest of the line. The right wing could not even guess the direction of the left wing. The surrounding forests and the hills shut in the center so completely that it did not know where either ofthe wings were. Every division commander simply obeyed the orders from head-quarters, took his position, and fought. The line of battle was formed in the night. To misunderstand orders and take the wrong position was easy. But so lucid were the commands, so particular the explanations which came from the man at head-quarters, that the line of battle was perfect. Many battles of the war were fought with but few orders from head-quarters; some without any concerted plan at all. Pittsburgh Landing, of the latter sort; Gettysburg, of the former sort. At Gettysburg, the commander-in-chief, General Meade, had little to do with the battle. The country was open, the enemy’s whereabouts was visible, and each division commander placed his troops just where they could do the most good. Not so at Chickamauga. No battle of the war required so many and such incessant orders from head-quarters. The only man in the Union army who knew the whole situation of our troops was General Garfield. Amid the forests, ravines and hills along the five miles of battle front, the only possible way to maintain a unity of plan and a concert of action was for the man at head-quarters to know it all. General Garfield knew the entire situation as if it had been a chess-board, and each division of the army a man. At a touch, by the player, the various brigades and divisions assumed their positions.

Every thing thus far said has been of the combatants. But there were others on the battle-field. There were the inhabitants of this valley, non-combatants, inviolate by the rules of civilized warfare. Of this sort were the rustic people at Widow Glenn’s, where General Garfield passed the most memorable days of his life. The house was a Tennessee cabin. Around it lay a little farm with small clearings. Here the widow lived with her three children, one a young man, the others a girl and boy of tender age. As General Garfield took up his head-quarters there it is said to have reminded him powerfully of his own childhood home with his toiling mother. All the life of these children had been passed in this quiet valley. Of the outside world they knew little, and cared less. They did not know the meaning of the word war. They were ignorant and poverty-stricken, but peaceful. Shut in by themountains of ignorance, as well as the lofty ranges along the valley, they had known no event more startling than the flight of birds through the air or the rustle of the wind through the forest. The soil was rocky and barren like their minds; yet, unvisited by calamity, they were happy.

But suddenly this quiet life was broken into. The forests were filled with armed men. The cabin was taken possession of by the officers. A sentinel stood at the door. Outside stood dozens of horses, saddled and bridled. Every moment some one mounted and dashed away; every moment some other dismounted from his breathless and foam-flecked steed and rushed into the cabin. The widow, stunned and frightened, sat in the corner with an arm around each of her children. The little girl cried, but the boy’s curiosity got somewhat the better of his fear. A time or two General Garfield took the little fellow on his knee, and quieted his alarm. The fences were torn down and used for camp fires. Great trees were hastily felled for barricades. In front of the house passed and repassed bodies of troops in uniform, and with deadly rifles. Now and then a body of cavalry dashed by in a whirlwind of dust. Great cannon, black and hideous, thundered down the rocky road, shaking the solid earth in their terrible race. The cabin-yard was filled with soldiers. The well was drained dry by them to fill their canteens. It was like a nightmare to the trembling inhabitants of the cabin. Their little crops were tramped into dust by the iron tread of war. On a hill in front of the cabin, where nothing more dangerous than a plow had ever been, a battery frowned. The valley which had never been disturbed by any thing more startling than the screech of an owl, or the cackle of the barn-yard, was filled with a muffled roar from the falling trees and the shouts of men.

When morning broke on the 19th of September, 1863, on this secluded spot, the clarion of the strutting cock was supplanted by the bugle-call. The moaning of the wind through the forest was drowned in the incessant roll of the drums. The movement of troops before the cabin from right to left became more rapid. The consultations within became more eager and hurried. Mysteriousnotes, on slips of white paper, were incessantly written by General Garfield and handed to orderlies, who galloped away into the forest. Spread out before him, on an improvised table, lay his maps, which he constantly consulted. At one time, after a long study of the map, he said to General Rosecrans: “Thomas will have the brunt of the battle. The Rossville road must be held at all hazards.” Rosecrans replied: “It is true. Thomas must hold it, if he has to be reinforced by the entire army.” At another time, a messenger dashed into the room, and handed the chief of staff an envelope. Quietly opening it, he calmly read aloud: “Longstreet has reinforced Bragg with seventeen thousand troops from Lee’s Virginia army.”

Toward nine o’clock in the morning, the movement of troops along the road ceased. The roar in the forest subsided. No more orders were sent by General Garfield. There was suspense. It was as if every one were waiting for something. The drums no longer throbbed; the bugle-call ceased from echoing among the mountains. A half hour passed. The silence was death-like. As the sun mounted upward it seemed to cast darker shadows than usual. The house-dog gave utterance to the most plaintive howls. The chickens were gathered anxiously together under a shed, as if it were about to rain. It was. But the rain was to be red. Passing over through the forest, one saw that the troops were drawn up in lines, all with their backs toward the road and the cabin, and facing the direction of the river. That was half a mile away, but its gurgle and plashing could be easily heard in the silence. It sent a shudder through one’s frame, as if it were the gurgle and plashing of blood. The only other sound that broke the quiet was the whinnying of cavalry horses far off to the right. The dumb brutes seemed anxious, and nervously answered each other’s eager calls.

Just as the hand of the clock reached ten there was a report from a gun. It came from the extreme left, miles away. General Garfield stepped quickly to the door, and listened. There was another gun, and another, and fifty more, swelling to a roar. Turning to Rosecrans, Garfield said: “It has begun.” To whichthe commander replied: “Then, God help us.” Heavier and heavier became the roar. The engagement on the left was evidently becoming heavier. A quarter of an hour later messengers began to arrive. The enemy was endeavoring to turn the left-flank, but was being repulsed with heavy loss. A few moments later came the word that the enemy had captured ten pieces of artillery. The order had been given for one division of the troops to fall back. It was obeyed. But the artillerymen had been unable to move the guns back in time. The heavy undergrowth in the forest, the fallen and rotting logs, had made it slow work to drag back the ponderous cannon. The red-shirted cannoneers were still bravely working to move their battery to the rear after the line had fallen back from them a long distance. Suddenly, with a fierce yell, the rebel column poured in upon them. Guns and gunners were captured.

At 11:30 came a call from General Thomas for reinforcements. General Garfield swiftly wrote an order for divisions in the center to march to the left and reinforce General Thomas. Another courier was dispatched to the right, ordering troops to take the place of those removed from the center. At half-past twelve these movements were completed. So far, the only attack had been on the left, though the tide of battle was rolling slowly down the line. General Rosecrans and General Garfield held an earnest consultation. It was decided to order an advance on the right center, in order to prevent the enemy from concentrating his whole army against our left wing.

Before long the din of conflict could be heard opposite the cabin. The advance was being fiercely contested. Messengers one after another came asking for reinforcements. General Garfield received their messages, asked each one a question or two, turned for a few moments to his map, and then issued orders for support to the right center. As the battle raged fiercer in front of the cabin, the sounds from the extreme left grew lighter. At two o’clock they ceased altogether. The battery had been recaptured, and the enemy silenced for the time being. Meanwhile, the battle at the center became more terrible. Ambulances hurriedalong. Poor fellows, pale and bleeding, staggered back to the road. Occasionally a shell dropped near the cabin, exploding with frightful force. The roar was deafening. General Garfield had to shout to General Rosecrans in order to be understood. The domestic animals around the cabin were paralyzed with fright. No thunder-storm, rattling among the mountain peaks, had ever shaken the earth like the terrific roar of the shotted guns. A half mile in front of the cabin, a dense smoke rose over the tops of the trees. All day long it poured upward in black volumes. The air became stifling with a sulphurous smell of gunpowder. The messengers hurrying to and from the cabin had changed in appearance. The bright, clean uniforms of the morning were torn and muddy. Their faces were black with smoke; their eyes bloodshot with fever. Some of them came up with bleeding wounds. When General Garfield called attention to the injury, they would say: “It is only a scratch.” In the excitement of battle men receive death wounds without being conscious that they are struck. Some of the messengers sent out came back no more forever. Their horses would gallop up the road riderless. The riders had found the serenity of death. “They were asleep in the windowless palace of rest.”

It was impossible to predict the issue of the conflict in the center. At one minute, a dispatch was handed Garfield, saying that the line was broken, and the enemy pouring through. Before he had finished the reading, another message said that our troops had rallied, and were driving the enemy. This was repeated several times.

The scene of this conflict was Vineyard’s farm. It was a clearing, surrounded on all sides by the thickest woods. The troops of each army, in the alternations of advance and retreat, found friendly cover in the woods, or fatal exposure in the clearing. It was this configuration of the battle-field which caused the fluctuations of the issue. Time after time a column of blue charged across the clearing, and was driven back to rally in the sheltering forest. Time after time did the line of gray advance from the shade into the sunlight only to retire, leaving half their number stretchedlifeless on the field. It was a battle within a battle. The rest of the army could hear the terrific roar, but were ignorant of the whereabouts of the conflict. The farm and the surrounding woods was a distinct battle-field. The struggle upon it, though an important element in a great battle on a vast field, was, during the later hours of its continuance, a separate battle, mapped upon the open field and forest in glaring insulation by the bodies of the slain.

Meanwhile, in hurrying reinforcements to this portion of the line of battle, a chasm was opened between the center and left. Troops were thrown forward to occupy it, but the enemy had discovered the weakness, and hurled forward heavy columns against the devoted Union lines. The struggle here was the counterpart of the one at the Vineyard farm. At the latter place the line was, at one time in the afternoon, driven back to the Lafayette road; but, towards evening, the divisions which had repulsed the attack on General Thomas’s extreme left were shifted down to the scene of these other conflicts, and the enemy was finally driven back with heavy loss.

When this was accomplished, the sun had already sunk behind the western range. Night swiftly drew her mantle over the angry field, and spread above the combatants her canopy of stars. The firing became weaker; only now and then a sullen shot was fired into the night. The first day of Chickamauga was done. In a little while ten thousand camp-fires blazed up in the forest, throwing somber shadows back of every object. At every fire could be seen the frying bacon and the steaming coffee-pot, singing as merrily as if war and battle were a thousand miles away. The men had eaten nothing since five o’clock in the morning. They had the appetites of hungry giants. Many a messmate’s place was empty. Many a corpse lay in the thicket, with a ball through the heart. But in the midst of horror the men were happy. The coffee and bacon and hard-tack tasted to the heroes like a banquet of the gods. With many a song and many a jest they finished the meal, rolled up in their blankets, and, lying down on the ground, with knapsacks for pillows, were fast asleep in the darkness. The redembers of the camp-fires gradually went out. The darkness and the silence were unbroken, save by the gleam of a star through the overarching branches, or the tramp of the watchful sentinels among the rustling leaves.

But at Widow Glenn’s cabin there was no sleep. General Garfield dispatched messengers to the different generals of the army to assemble for a council of war. It was eleven o’clock before all were present. Long and anxious was the session. The chief of staff marked out the situation of each division of the army upon his map. The losses were estimated, and the entire ground gone over. On the whole, the issue of the day had been favorable. The army having been on the defensive, might be considered so far victorious in that it had held its own. The line of battle was now continuous, and much shorter than in the morning. The general movement of troops during the day had been from right to left. The battle front was still parallel with the Chattanooga roads. General Thomas still held his own. The losses had been heavy, but not so severe as the enemy’s. But it was evident that the battle would be renewed on the morrow. The troops, already exhausted by forced marches in the effort to concentrate before attack, had all been engaged during the day. It was tolerably certain, General Garfield thought, from the reports of his scouts, that the enemy would have fresh troops to oppose to the wearied men. This would necessitate all the army being brought into action again on the next day. In case the enemy should succeed in getting the roads to Chattanooga, there was no alternative but the entire destruction of the splendid Army of the Cumberland. Still further concentration of the forces on the left, to reinforce General Thomas, was decided on. Many of the tired troops had to be roused from their sleep for this movement. There was no rest at head-quarters. When morning dawned the light still shone from the cabin window.

On the morning of September 20, 1863, a dense fog rose from the Chickamauga River, and, mixing with the smoke from the battle of the day before, filled the valley. This fact delayed the enemy’s attack. The sun rose, looking through the fog like a vastdisk of blood. General Garfield noticed it, and, pointing to the phenomenon, said: “It is ominous. It will indeed be a day of blood.” By nine o’clock the fog lifted sufficiently for the attack. As on the day before, it began on the left, rolling down the line. From early morning General Thomas withstood the furious assaults of the constantly reinforced enemy. The change of the line in the night had been such that it was the right wing instead of the center which was now in front of the Widow Glenn’s. The battle was fierce and more general than the day before. The demands for reinforcements on the left came faster and faster. Division after division was moved to the left. In the midst of a battle these movements are dangerous. A single order, given from head-quarters without a perfect comprehension of the situation of the troops, a single ambiguous phrase, a single erroneous punctuation mark in the hastily-written dispatch, may cost thousands of lives in a few minutes. In a battle like Chickamauga, where the only unity possible is by perfect and swift obedience to the commands from head-quarters, a single misunderstood sentence may change the destiny of empires.

The information received at Widow Glenn’s up to ten o’clock of the 20th showed that the troops, though wearied, were holding their own. Up to this time General Garfield, appreciating each emergency as it occurred, had directed every movement, and written every order during the battle. Not a blunder had occurred. His clear, unmistakable English, had not a doubtful phrase or a misplaced comma. Every officer had understood and executed just what was expected of him. The fury of the storm had so far spent itself in vain.

At half-past ten, an aid galloped up to the cabin and informed General Rosecrans that there was a chasm in the center, between the divisions of General Reynolds on the left and General Wood on the right. Unfortunate moment! Cruel fate! In a moment a blunder was committed which was almost to destroy our heroic army. In the excitement of the crisis, Rosecrans varied from his custom of consulting the chief of staff. General Garfield was deeply engaged at another matter. Rosecrans called another aidto write an order instantly directing Wood to close the gap by moving to his left. Here is the document as it was dashed down at that memorable and awful moment:

“Head-Quarters Department of Cumberland,}“September 20th—10.45A. M.}

“Head-Quarters Department of Cumberland,}

“September 20th—10.45A. M.}

“Brigadier-General Wood, Commanding Division:

“The general commanding directs that you close up on Reynolds as fast as possible, and support him. Respectfully, etc.,

“Frank S. Bond, Major and Aid-de-camp.”

Had General Garfield been consulted that order would never have been written.Wood was not next to Reynolds. General Brannan’s division was in the line between them.Brannan’s force stood back from the line somewhat. The aid, galloping rapidly over the field, did not know that a little farther back in the forest stood Brannan’s division. It looked to him like a break in the line. General Rosecrans was either ignorant, or forgot that Brannan was there. General Garfield alone knew the situation of every division on the battle-field.This fatal order was the only one of the entire battle which he did not write himself.On receipt of the order, General Wood was confused. He could not close up on Reynolds because Brannan was in the way. Supposing, however, from the words of the order, that Reynolds was heavily pressed, and that the intention was to reinforce him, and knowing the extreme importance of obeying orders from head-quarters, in order to prevent the army from getting inextricably tangled in the forest, he promptly marched his division backward, passed to the rear of Brannan, and thus to the rear of and support of Reynolds.

The fatal withdrawal of Wood from the line of battle was simultaneous with a Confederate advance. Failing in his desperate and bloody attacks upon the left, Bragg ordered an advance all along the line. Right opposite the chasm left by Wood was Longstreet, the most desperate fighter of the Confederacy, with seventeen thousand veteran troops from Lee’s army. Formed in solid column, three-quarters of a mile long, on they came right at the gap. Two brigades of Federal troops, under General Lytle, reachedthe space first, but were instantly ground to powder beneath this tremendous ram. Right through the gap came the wedge, splitting the Union army in two. In fifteen minutes the entire right wing was a rout. One-half the army was in a dead run toward Rossville. Guns, knapsacks, blankets, whatever could impede them, was hastily thrown away.

So sudden was the rout that the stream of fugitives, swarming back from the woods, was the first information received at Widow Glenn’s that the line had been pierced. There was no time to be lost. Behind the fleeing troops came the iron columns of the enemy. In five minutes more the cabin would be in their hands. Hastily gathering his precious maps, Garfield followed Rosecrans on horseback, over to the Dry Valley road. Here General Garfield dismounted, and exerted all his powers to stem the tide of retreat. Snatching a flag from a flying color-bearer, he shouted at the deaf ears of the mob. Seizing men by their shoulders he would turn them around, and then grasp others to try and form a nucleus to resist the flood. It was useless. The moment he took his hands off of a man he would run.

Rejoining Rosecrans, who believed that the entire army was routed, the commander said: “Garfield, what can be done?” Undismayed by the panic-stricken army crowding past him, which is said to be the most demoralizing and unnerving sight on earth, Garfield calmly said, “One of us should go to Chattanooga, secure the bridges in case of total defeat, and collect the fragments of the army on a new line. The other should make his way, if possible, to Thomas, explain the situation, and tell him to hold his ground at any cost, until the army can be rallied at Chattanooga.” “Which will you do?” asked Rosecrans. “Let me go to the front,” was General Garfield’s instant reply. “It is dangerous,” said he, “but the army and country can better afford for me to be killed than for you.” They dismounted for a hurried consultation. With ear on the ground, they anxiously listened to the sound of Thomas’s guns. “It is no use,” said Rosecrans. “The fire is broken and irregular. Thomas is driven. Let us both hurry to Chattanooga, to save what can be saved.” But General Garfieldhad a better ear. “You are mistaken. The fire is still in regular volleys. Thomas holds his own, and must be informed of the situation. Send orders to Sheridan, and the other commanders of the right wing, to collect the fragments of their commands and move them through Rossville, and back on the Lafayette road, to Thomas’s support.” There were a few more hurried words; then a grasp of the hand and the commander and his chief of staff separated, the one to go to the rear, the other to the front. Rosecrans has said that he felt Garfield would never come back again.

GARFIELD AT THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA.

Then began that world-famous ride. No one knew the situation of the troops, the cause of the disaster, and the way to retrieve it like the chief of staff. To convey that priceless information to Thomas, Garfield determined to do or to die. He was accompanied by Captain Gano, who had come from General Thomas before the disaster, and knew how to reach him; besides these two, eachofficer had an orderly. On they galloped up the Dry Valley road, parallel with, but two miles back of, the morning’s line of battle. After reaching a point opposite the left wing, they expected to cross to General Thomas. But Longstreet’s column, after passing the Union center, had turned to its right at Widow Glenn’s, to march to the rear of General Thomas, and thus destroy that part of the army which still stood fighting the foe in its face. The course of Longstreet was thus parallel with the road along which Garfield galloped. At every effort to cross to the front he found the enemy between him and General Thomas.

It was a race between the rebel column and the noble steed on which Garfield rode. Up and down along the stony valley road, sparks flying from the horse’s heels, two of the party hatless, and all breathless, without delay or doubt on dashed the heroes. Still the enemy was between them and Thomas. They were compelled to go almost to Rossville. At last General Garfield said: “We must try to cross now or never. In a half hour it will be too late for us to do any good.” Turning sharply to their right, they found themselves in a dark-tangled forest. They were scratched and bleeding from the brier thickets and the overhanging branches. But not a rider checked his horse. General Garfield’s horse seemed to catch the spirit of the race. Over ravines and fences, through an almost impenetrable undergrowth, sometimes through a marsh, and then over broken rocks, the smoking steed plunged without a quiver.

Suddenly they came upon a cabin, a Confederate pest-house. A crowd of unfortunates, in various stages of the small-pox, were sitting and lying about the lonely and avoided place. The other riders spurred on their way, but General Garfield reined in sharply, and, calling in a kind tone to the strongest of the wrecks, asked, “Can I do any thing for you, my poor fellow?” In an instant the man gasped out, “Do not come near. It is small-pox. But for God’s sake give us money to buy food.” Quick as thought the great-hearted chief of staff drew out his purse and tossed it to the man, and with a rapid but cheerful “good-bye” spurred after his companions. Crashing, tearing, plunging, rearing through theforest dashed the steed. Poet’s song could not be long to celebrate that daring deed.

Twice they stopped. They were on dangerous ground. At any moment they might come upon the enemy. They were right on the ground for which Longstreet’s column was headed. Which would get there first? A third time they stopped. The roar of battle was very near. They were in the greatest peril. Utterly ignorant of the course of events, since he had been driven from Widow Glenn’s, General Garfield did not know but what the rebel column had passed completely to Thomas’s rear and lay directly in front of them. They changed their course slightly to the left. Of his own danger Garfield never thought. The great fear in his mind was that he would fail to reach Thomas, with the order to take command of all the forces, and with the previous information of the necessity of a change of front. At last they reached a cotton field. If the enemy was near, it was almost certain death. Suddenly a rifle-ball whizzed past Garfield’s face. Turning in his saddle he saw the fence on the right glittering with murderous rifles. A second later a shower of balls rattled around the little party. Garfield shouted, “Scatter, gentlemen, scatter,” and wheeled abruptly to the left. Along that side of the field was a ridge. If it could be reached, they were safe. The two orderlies never reached it. Captain Gano’s horse was shot through the lungs, and his own leg broken by the fall. Garfield was now the single target for the enemy. His own horse received two balls, but the noble animal kept straight on at its terrific speed. General Garfield speaking of it afterwards said that his thought was divided between poor Thomas and his young wife and child in the little home at Hiram. With a few more leaps he gained the ridge, unhurt. Captain Gano painfully crawling on the ground finally gained the ridge himself.

General Thomas was still a mile away. In ten minutes Garfield was at his side, hurriedly explaining the catastrophe at noon. They stood on a knoll overlooking the field of battle. The horse which had borne Garfield on his memorable ride, dropped dead at his feet while the chief of staff told Thomas the situation.There was no time to be lost. Hurrying down to his right, General Thomas found that a considerable portion of the center had swung around like a door to oppose Longstreet’s advance. For an hour or more his columns had flung themselves with desperate fury on this line so unexpectedly opposed to them. Hour after hour these lines had held him at bay. The slaughter was terrible. But this could not last. There was no uniform plan in this accidental battle front. There were great chasms in it. The Confederate forces were diverging to their left toward the Dry Valley road, and would soon flank this line. But Thomas was a great commander. Without a moment’s delay his line of battle was withdrawn to a ridge in the form of a horse-shoe. The main front was now at right angles with that of the morning; that is, it lay across the Rossville road instead of parallel with it. Thomas’s troops were now arranged in a three-quarter circle. They scarcely numbered twenty-five thousand. Around this circle, as around a little island, like an ocean of fire, raged a Confederate army of sixty thousand troops. Overwhelmed by numbers, General Thomas still held the horse-shoe ridge, through which lay the Rossville road. The storm of battle raged with fearful power. The line of heroes seemed again and again about to be swallowed up in the encircling fire. Again and again Longstreet’s troops charged with unexampled impetuosity, and as many times were beaten back bruised and bleeding. The crisis of the battle at half past four in the afternoon, when Longstreet hurled forward his magnificent reserve corps, is said to have rivaled, in tragic importance and far-reaching consequences, the supreme moment in the battle of Gettysburg, when Pickett’s ten thousand Virginians, in solid column, charged upon Cemetery Ridge.

But all the valor and all the fury was in vain. “George A. Thomas,” in the words of Garfield, “was indeed the ‘rock of Chickamauga,’ against which the wild waves of battle dashed in vain.”

General Garfield, from the moment of his arrival, had plunged into the thickest of the fray. When at last the thinned and shattered lines of gray withdrew, leaving thousands of their deadupon the bloody field, smoked and powder-grimed, he was personally managing a battery of which the chief gunners had been killed at their post. Towards the close of the fight Thomas’s ammunition ran very low. His ammunition trains had become involved with the rout of the right, and were miles in the rear at Rossville. This want of ammunition created more fear than the assaults of the enemy. The last charge was repelled at portions of the line with the bayonet alone.

But the hard-earned victory was won. The Rossville road was still held. The masterly skill and coolness of Thomas, when General Garfield reached him with information as to the rest of the army, which, it must be remembered, was never visible through the dense forests and jagged ridges of the valley, had saved the Army of the Cumberland from destruction. After night the exhausted men withdrew to Rossville and subsequently to Chattanooga.

A great battle is a memorable experience to one who takes part. There is nothing like it on earth. Henceforth the participant is different from other men. All his preceding life becomes small and forgotten after such days as those of Chickamauga. From that day he feels that he began to live. When the flames of frenzy with which he was possessed subside, they have left their mark on his being. Ordinarily the flames of battle have burnt out many sympathies. His nature stands like a forest of charred and blackened trunks, once green and beautiful, waving in their leafy splendor, but through which the destroying tempest of fire has passed in its mad career of vengeance. He can neither forget nor forgive the murderous foe. Before the battle he might have exchanged tobacco plugs with the man with whom he would have, with equal readiness, exchanged shots. But after the carnage of the battle, after the day of blood and fury, all this is passed. The last gun is fired on the field of battle. The last shattered line of heroes withdraws into the night. The earth has received its last baptism of blood for the time-being. Only burial parties, with white flags, may be seen picking their way among the fallen brave. The actual battle is over forever. Not so is it with the combatant. In his mind the battle goes on and on. He is perpetually training masked batteries on the foe.The roar of conflict never ceases to reverberate in his brain. Throughout his life, whenever recalled to the subject of the war, his mental attitude is that of the battle-field. In his thought the columns are still charging up the hill. The earth still shakes with an artillery that is never silenced. The air is still sulphurous with gunpowder smoke. The ranks of the brave and true still fall around him. Forever is he mentally loading and firing; forever charging bayonets across the bloody field; forever burying the fallen heroes under the protection of the flag of truce.

This is the law of ordinary minds. The red panorama of the Gettysburg and the Chickamauga is forever moving before his eyes. The wrench or strain given to his mental being by those days is too terrific, too awful, for any reaction in the average mind. This fact has been abundantly proven in the history of the last twenty years. Chickamauga thus became a new birth to many a soldier. His life, henceforward, seemed to date from the 19th of September, 1863. His life was ever afterward marked off by anniversaries of that day. It is found that many soldiers die on the anniversary of some great battle in which they were participants. Such is the influence mental states bear upon the physical organism.

Chickamauga was all this to General Garfield. It was more than this to him. He was not merely a participant in the battle of bullets. He was also in the battle of brains. The field soldier certainly feels enough anxiety. His mental experience has enough of torture to gratify the monarch of hell himself. But the anxieties of the man at head-quarters are unspeakable. He sees not merely the actual horrors and the individual danger. He carries on his heart the responsibility for an army. He is responsible for the thousands of lives. A single mistake, a single blunder, a single defective plan, will forever desolate unnumbered firesides. More than this he feels. Not only the fate of the army, but the fate of the country rests in his hand. The burden is crushing. It may be said this is only upon the Commander-in-chief. But General Garfield, as chief of staff, we have seen, was no figure-head, no amanuensis. He took the responsibilities of that campaign andbattle to his own heart. At every step his genius grappled with the situation. Rosecrans was a good soldier; but in nothing was his ability so exhibited as in selecting Garfield for his confidential adviser and trusting so fully to his genius.

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