CHAPTER IX
PERSONAL NARRATIVE—CHICKAMAUGA
On the last day of June, 1863, Rosecrans began to advance on Bragg. That was the signal for our leaving Shelbyville. On the 3rd of July the Union army entered Tullahoma.
On the morning of the 2nd, as I left the headquarters of General Bragg, I met my friend Governor Isham G. Harris. He looked very bright and cheerful and said to me: "To-morrow morning you will be roused up by the thunder of our artillery." But instead of being thus aroused I found myself in full retreat toward Winchester. Thence I rode to Cowan, where I found General Bragg and his staff, and General Polk with his staff. I rode up to them and said to General Bragg: "My dear General, I am afraid you are thoroughly outdone."
"Yes," he said, "I am utterly broken down." And then leaning over his saddle he spoke of the loss of Middle Tennessee and whispered: "This is a great disaster."
I said to him: "General, don't be disheartened, our turn will come next."
I found Colonel Walters, his Adjutant-General, lying in the corner of a rail fence, with his hands under his head, looking the very picture of despair. I said to him; "My dear Colonel, what is the matter with you?" His reply was: "How can you ask such a question, when you know as well as I do what has happened?"
Our troops were at this time moving rapidly across the Sewanee Mountain, over country which subsequently became very familiar to me in times of peace. I said to him; "My dear Colonel, I am afraid you've not read the Psalms for the day." "No," he answered. "What do they say?"
I replied in the words of the first verse of the Eleventh Psalm: "In the Lord put I my trust; how say ye then to my soul, that she should flee as a bird unto the hill?"
I gave my horse to one of "the boys," and at the request of General Bragg, I accompanied him by rail to Chattanooga. On the 21st of August, a day appointed by the President of the Confederate States for fasting, humiliation and prayer, while I was preaching in a church, the Union army appeared opposite Chattanooga and began shelling the town. I think my sermon on that occasion was not long. Early in September, General McCook and General Thomas moved in such a way as to completely flank the Confederate position. General Bragg immediately began his retreat southward, and having been joined by General Longstreet and his forces, attacked General Thomas at Lee and Gordon's Mills, twelve miles south of Chattanooga, on the 19th of September. It was a bitter fight, but the day closed without any decisive results to either side.
After this the great battle of Chickamauga was fought. Undoubtedly General Thomas saved the Union army from utter ruin, but Longstreet, by his prompt action in seizing an opportunity, won the victory for the Confederate army.