The Campaigns of the 124th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, with Roster and Roll of Honor

by G. W. Lewis

We fought the battle of Missionary Ridge with the great victory of the battle of Lookout mountain as an inspiration, and the flag the gallant Hooker planted there waiving above us.

Some have supposed that the battle of Missionary Ridge was fought without any definite plan save to find the enemy and fight him, but this is an error. While the battle of Missionary Ridge was a brilliant success, could General Grant's plan have been carried out Bragg's entire army must have been destroyed or captured. Hooker was ordered to withdraw from the mountain early in the morning of the twenty-fifth, cross Chattanooga creek and move up the valley to Rossville, and thereby substantially turn Bragg's left flank. Sherman was to attack his right flank at Tunnel Hill, while Thomas, in direct command of the Army of the Cumberland, was to hold the center, and fall on his rear the moment he saw any indications that Bragg was withdrawing to support his right or left. But it was never intended that the ridge should be climbed in the face of the enemy, without either of his flanks being turned or shaken. No general ever dreamed of the storming of Missionary Ridge before the charge began. The best plans of battles often fail of execution. When General Hooker struck Chattanooga creek he found a stream he could not ford, and was compelled to bridge in face of the enemy and under a heavy fire. And instead of being able to reach Rossville early in the day, as was expected by Grant, he found himself confronted by the enemy more resolute and determined than had opposed him on the mountain the day before.

Sherman opened the battle on our left with great vigor and determination, and from our position we could see his charging columns; but he found the enemy in a very strong position, naturally, improved by very strong works, and he seemed to make little, if any, progress.

Our line ran through the edge of a small growth of timber. To the front there was a soap-stone plateau of about six hundred yards, before reaching the base of the ridge, where ran a line of the enemy's rifle pits well filled with infantry. Our skirmish line covered the entire front of the brigade, and soon after our position had been taken Colonel Pickands came to the officers of the regiment with the order that "at the firing of six guns from Fort Wood, and the sounding of the forward, we must face to the front, and not suffer ourselves to be checked until we put ourselves into the rebel works at the base of the ridge."

No emotion was visible in the soldierly face of our brave colonel, save, perhaps, a little more violent chewing of a large quid of the weed that added rotundity to his bronzed weather-beaten cheek. His further order was that we inform each man in the ranks of what was expected of him. Commanding at the time company B, it was my painful duty to break the news to those that I had known from boyhood, and that I had learned to love as brothers. No one that I communicated the order to, but turned pale.

If the Light Brigade, that Tennyson has immortalized, was ordered "into the jaws of death, into the gates of hell," what was to be our fate when, the moment our line struck the open plateau, one hundred guns would be opened on us from the summit of the ridge; while the infantry, safe in its works at the foot of the ridge, would be in deadly range from the moment we emerged from the little strip of timber that concealed our line. Now there was nothing to do but wait. Now the time hung heavy. Now the soldier's thoughts were filled with home and the loved ones left behind, and what would become of them if he should fall in the terrific charge that he knew would soon have to be made.

It is the dreadful waiting that is more terrible than the shock of battle. When once within the storm of the leaden hail the soldier seems to rise to a higher plane of life; and while his comrades fall around him, the din of battle in his ears, the groans of the wounded and dying, the shouts of defiance of the enemy, and encouragement of his comrades are ringing out on every hand, he feels as much the master of the storm of battle as the eagle of the storm cloud.

But the waiting at last comes to an end. Hooker has found more difficulties in pushing his column to the right of the ridge and in the direction of Rossville, than had been anticipated, and as the sun was slowly sinking toward the crest of Waldron's Ridge the cannon belched forth from Fort Wood.

Every soldier of the 124th was instantly in position, and as the silvery notes of the bugle sounded the forward, and breaking the awful silence after the cannon's reverberations had ceased, the 124th, with clutched muskets, rushed forth to the charge of death. As soon as we emerged from the line of timber the rebel guns opened on us, and the whole ridge from right to left blazed like a volcano. The earth trembled and shook as though in the throes of an earthquake, while grape, canister, shell and shrapnel bounded on the stony plain, like peas on the threshing floor. The rebel infantry at the base of the ridge, seeing the impetuosity of the charge, left their works and fled to their main line at the summit. The terrible order had been obeyed. We had put ourselves into the rebel works at the base of the ridge; and, looking back over the way we had come, we saw the solid ranks of infantry moving toward us. The rebel artillery from the top of the ridge opened terrible gaps and lanes in those ranks of blue; but nothing daunted, onward, with steady step, they come, until they mingle with us at the foot of the ridge. The terrible order had been obeyed, and the mercenary soldier would have been content to have remained in the comparative security afforded by the hill. Not so the grand old Army of the Cumberland; not so the grand old 124th. Without orders the charge was at once resumed. The ridge in our front is eight hundred feet above the level of the Tennessee; in some places almost perpendicular, but in our front not so abrupt, but so steep that the ascent was difficult to one without arms and accoutrements. On rushed the gallant army; on rushed the gallant regiment. Every soldier had all the ardor of a Phil. Sheridan. No opportunity to return the galling fire. Comrades falling at every step, but at last the summit is gained. The enemy completely routed. The guns of the rebels turned. Plenty of ammunition found, but no friction primers. The ingenuity of the 124th is equal to the occasion. A boy shouts "stand back," fires his musket on the breech of the cannon, and the shell goes screeching toward the ranks of the retreating enemy, adding consternation to panic.

On the left of where we broke the line the enemy still held out against the heroic charge of the gallant Willich. Instantly a line of the 124th is formed, the left half-wheel executed, and the rebels, finding their flank attacked, crumble and finally flee in dismay. A battery of artillery is descried in the front, being moved to the rear. Instantly and without orders a few men form a skirmish line and advance, and in a few seconds every horse is shot down. The guns proved to be a part of the celebrated Loomis battery, taken by the rebels at Stone river.