Some have said that both armies retreated from the field of battle, and had our army stayed on the field the night of the twentieth, no confederate army would have confronted it on the morning of the twenty-first. But this story, though I am told it has gone into history, I never believed to be true. In the first place, the confederate general, Bragg, had, when the campaign commenced, an army nearly equal in numbers to our own, with no rear to take care of and guard. Secondly, after he crossed the mountains he was reinforced by General Longstreet's Corps from the army of northern Virginia. And, thirdly, he had at his command (but not called into the battle to any extent) a large force of Georgia state militia.
Then again, the second day of the battle McCook's Corps was largely cut to pieces and destroyed for fighting business. The 14th and 21st Corps were badly cut up in the two days fighting, and at the close of the second day almost destitute of ammunition. And finally, there was the movement of men before sundown to inform that we were abandoning the field. So it never seemed credible that the confederates were retreating the night of the twentieth as well as ourselves.
The night of the twenty-first we fell back and entrenched a position just outside of the then small village of Chattanooga. The victorious confederates occupied the whole extent of Missionary Ridge, and soon appeared in force on the summit of Lookout.
So I have given you, in great weakness and imperfection, some of my recollections of the memorable campaign of Chattanooga and the battle of Chickamauga. I have read no book or history giving an account of the campaign and battle. Being simply an officer in the line my chances for observation were very limited, and very many of my conclusions are, without doubt, inaccurate. The plans of a battle, always an interesting feature of history, I have, as a matter of course, been compelled to omit.
PRIVATE GEORGE BENTON.
"I will come back or I will be a dead Benton." Page [69].
But if this unworthy effort has revived patriotic memories in the minds of those of you who can remember the war, or revived the recollections of my old comrades in arms, or given some faint idea to those that have come after us of what was attempted and suffered by those that strove "to keep our flag in the sky" in all those dark years, I have been amply rewarded for the attempt.
Chickamauga was in one sense a battle lost; but by it we won the campaign, and from the ground beyond the mountains and beyond the river that we had crossed, the invincible Sherman led his victorious legions into and through the very vitals of the confederacy.
It was one of those grand struggles between brave men that has marked the progress of liberty and right in all ages; that has cemented us firmly in the bonds of Unity and Fraternity and made us in arms invincible as against the world.[[2]]
[2]. First delivered before the River Styx Literary Society, March 12th, 1887.