After this defeat, Bragg retired towards Atlanta, to which we also went.
At the battle of Jonesboro, near Atlanta, Captain Andy Burt and I had many men wounded. Visiting these men in a large tent containing perhaps seventy-five men, we found that certain Union Christian Societies had pinned upon its white walls large placards reading, "Are you prepared to die?" "Prepare to meet your God." As soon as Burt saw these senseless signs, he tore them down, stamping them under his feet, crying out, "Never say die, men! Never say die!" A badly wounded sergeant of my regiment answered, "If more officers like this visited us, there wouldn't be so many of us die!"
One of the most distinguished field batteries in the army was raised by the Chicago Board of Trade. Commanded by a fine-looking young German, Captain Dilger, this battery was given carte blanche to proceed where it pleased to do the most destruction, and his men seemed to be inspired with his own spirit and ambition. In his buckskin suit he would ride about, seeking a place to set up his battery to advantage. Dashing even beyond the skirmish lines, he would go into action and do all the destruction he could before the enemy could get his range, and as suddenly disappear.
At New Hope Church, Lieutenant Bisbee (now Brigadier General, retired) and I, with our two companies, were on picket duty when Dilger's battery passed through our lines and into action. Knowing the Confederates would soon get his range, our men protected themselves behind rocks and trees. Bisbee and I were behind a pine tree twenty inches in diameter, when a solid shot cut the tree in two, throwing us to the ground with splinters in our bodies. Neither of us was seriously wounded, and we returned to duty in a few days.
The regular brigade was so depleted with losses, discharges and failure to enlist that it was determined to send it while waiting recruits to camp on Lookout Mountain, overlooking Chattanooga. As the senior officer of the 18th Infantry, I marched it to the mountain for indefinite encampment.
At this time General Steedman, with ten thousand men, was ordered to defend Chattanooga in the apprehended march of Hood to Nashville. Learning I was out of active service while my regiment recuperated, Steedman called me to his staff as inspector general of his provisional corps. When Hood avoided Chattanooga, we moved the whole ten thousand men, reaching Nashville and joining Thomas just in time to escape being cut off by Hood's army.
Hood, relieving Bragg, invested Nashville and, on December 16, 1864, the Battle of Nashville took place. Hood's retreat toward the Cumberland River was disastrous, but floods saved his army. We were unable to cross streams over which he had destroyed the bridges. Thomas ordered Steedman to Murfreesboro to entrain ten thousand men for Decatur, Alabama, to prevent Hood's crossing.
We halted Sunday morning at Huntsville to repair some small bridges. While waiting, a bell began to ring for church services, and the General suggested that we all attend. A dignified, gray-haired old man mounted the pulpit, and began the services, bringing in with more than necessary vehemence the prayer for Jeff Davis and all those in authority. General Steedman, a man of intense passion combined with the tenderest affection, was bitterly insulted, but he remained until the services were completed. Retiring from the church, he arrested the preacher and placed him under guard. He was the Reverend Dr. Ross of Knoxville, Tennessee, who some years before had canvassed the Northern States with Parson Bronlow in a political-religious discussion of slavery. In that canvass Parson Bronlow took the side of slavery and Dr. Ross the opposite. They had now each honestly changed their views completely.
When the Doctor was brought in, the General exclaimed, passionately, "Dr. Ross, have you no more respect for the authorities of the Federal Government than to pray for Jeff Davis in their presence? If you have no more respect, have you no more sense?"
The Doctor stood calmly and said, "I have more respect for my conscientious convictions as a minister, my creed in religion, and my God than I have for the authorities of the United States Government. If I have committed any crime in your eyes, you have the power to punish me; but I shall cheerfully accept any punishment you choose to give me, even to death."