HOUSE OF ME. J. M. LEE, CRAWFISH SPRINGS, ROSECRANS’S HEADQUARTERS BEFORE THE BATTLE, AND SITE OF THE UNION FIELD-HOSPITAL FOR THE RIGHT WING.
From a photograph taken in 1884.
as close and deadly as men. could make them. Thomas often came within speaking distance of his men, and wherever the energy of the attack most endangered our line, he strengthened it with cannon and regiments drawn from points in less peril; and when the soldiers asked for more ammunition Thomas said:	“Use your bayonets.”
At about 3:30 in the afternoon I saw General Thomas looking in the direction of Chattanooga, watching with anxious interest a column of dust rising in the air. Our suspense was relieved when Granger and Steedman emerged from the dust, and Garfield dashed up to Thomas.
To prevent a turning movement on the road from Ringgold, through Rossville to Chattanooga, Granger, with three brigades, had been stationed on the Ringgold road ; and, by a sound, soldierly judgment, leaving one brigade to do the work assigned to three, brought two brigades to the field. Thomas himself was then only a little way down the rear slope of the low ridge on which Wood’s division was fighting, with every man in the line, and with no reserves. We were hard pressed, and many muskets became so hot that loading was difficult; but Thomas sent up two cannon with the words : “ The position must beheld.” The reply was : “ Tell General Thomas that we will hold the position or go to heaven from it.”
At about 4 o’clock Longstreet drew back and asked for reinforcements, but was answered that the right wing was already so shattered that it could not aid him. He then brought forward his reserves and re-formed his lines; and extending beyond our right, advanced in a final attack.
Thomas ordered Granger’s reinforcements to the right of Brannan, where the enemy had already begun to appear. The conflict there, and on the divisions of Brannan and Wood, was soon at its
holding the enemy in check. McCook and Crittenden soon joined Rosecrans at Chattanooga ; but Thomas remained on the field. Brannan brought his division to a good position, but so far to the right of Reynolds that the space of a division lay open between them. While Wood was moving toward this gap, Longstreet, advancing to.complete the work, came within musket-range.
The moment was critical, because if Wood should be unable to occupy and hold the gap, Longstreet would pass through, permanently cut off Brannan, again turn, and then overwhelm Reynolds, and attack the rear of Palmer, Johnson, and Baird, who ■were still confronted by Polk. Wood coolly changed front under fire, so as to face south instead of east, and caused one of his brigades to charge with fixed bayonets. The audacity of the charge probably made the enemy believe that there was force enough near to sustain it, for they soon bolted, and then fled out of range just before our bayonets reached their ranks. The needed moments were snatched from the enemy, and Wood brought his division into the gap between Reynolds and Brannan.
Except some fragments from the broken divisions, our line was now composed of Baird’s, Johnson’s, Palmer’s, Reynolds’s, Wood’s, andBrannan’s divisions, naming them from left to right. In front stood the whole army of the enemy, eager to fall upon us with the energy that comes from great success and greater hopes. But close behind our line rode a general whose judgment never erred, whose calm, invincible will never bent; and around him thirty thousand soldiers resolved to exhaust the last round of ammunition, and then to hold their ground with their bayonets. Soldiers thus inspired and commanded, are more easily killed than defeated.
For five long hours the shocks and caruage were
full force against our right wing, Rosecrans, in the short space of fifteen minutes,—10:30 to 10:45,— ordered to his left Van Cleve, from the reserve, and Sheridan from the extreme right; and, by the blunder of an aide in wording an order, sent Wood out of line to “close up on Reynolds and support him as soon as possible,” while McCook was to move Davis by the left flank into the position vacated by Wood. These disconnected and fatal movements of Van Cleve, Wood, Sheridan, and Davis were in progress when Longstreet attacked them with six divisions of the Confederate left wing. Disaster was the immediate and inevitable result.
Sheridan’s routed division moved back to Rossville. Heroism could not save Davis ; his division was overwhelmed, and scattered in fragments that were afterward collected behind Missionary Ridge. Wood’s movement uncovered Brannan’s right, and, in temporary confusion, that division hurried away to a new position. This exposed Reynolds’s right, made it necessary for him to change front to the rear at right angles on his left; but there he held firmly to Palmer’s right. The rush of disordered troops and
artillery, disintegrating Van Cleve’s division, destroyed its further usefulness in this battle. Rosecrans, seeing this appalling demolition of his right wing, and finding that the enemy had interposed between him and Thomas, hastened around to Rossville. Finding there men of Neg-ley’s division, which he had supposed to be with Thomas, Rosecrans thought the day lost, and deemed it his duty to hasten to Chattanooga, there to prepare for the reception and disposition of what seemed to him his disordered and defeated army. Rosecrans and Garfield, his chief-of-staff, separated at Rossville, Rose-cransridingto Chattanooga and Garfield to Thomas at the front. Rosecrans says that he sent Garfield to the front; while Garfield has many times said that he himself insisted upon going, that the sound of the battle proved that Thomas was still
break, but the first shots were not heard before 8:30; and, in an hour, the action at the left became furious. Polk’s right division began to envelop our left and to appear upon our rear; but Thomas hurried some reserves against it and drove it away in disorder. Having been able, in the absence of Negley’s division, to find the way to our left and rear, the enemy would naturally reappear there with decisive numbers. Thomas, therefore, knowing nothing of Negley’s conduct, and wishing to add only a division to his left, sent again and again for the promised reinforcements. The attack soon extended heavily to Johnson, Palmer, and Reynolds; and, by 10:30, lightly to Brannan. Naturally supposing that Negley had alreadj' reached Thomas, Rosecrans inferred, from the requests of Thomas and from other indications, that Bragg was moving his left wing to the extreme right of the Confederate line of battle. The conflict had been raging against Thomas for two hours, while Wood, Davis, and Sheridan were untouched; and, not suspecting that Longstreet (a reconnoissanee of ten minutes would have developed it) was already formed for attack and about to advance in
GENERAL JOHN B. HOOD, C. S. A. Commanding a corps at Cliiekamanga.
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