It was Sunday—a calm, clear September day in the mountains of Georgia, amid scenery that Switzerland could not excel in romantic grandeur. The rich green foliage of the mountains served as a background, and from its sides and gorges arose in dense volumes the sulphurous smoke of battle. The fiery wave of battle boiled and surged in its maddening fury during the evening and until nightfall. Commencing on the right, the deafening thunder would roll along the line toward the left, when it would be taken up and swept back to where it started. The sound indicated with accuracy the result in different parts of the field; for as a column would advance to the charge you would first hear the rapid and quick discharge of the batteries, indicating that their position was threatened, then would come a crash of musketry as if every tree in the forest had fallen, and high above all this the shouts of the Confederates. For a moment a deathlike silence would ensue just there, unmistakably evidencing the fact that the battery had been taken or driven from the field. This would hardly die away at a given point before it would be repeated successively along the line and echoed back again, swelling at times to such a mighty chorus manufactured from the thunders of war that it seemed that both heaven and earth would be torn asunder. Truly

“Such a din was there,

As if men fought on earth below

And fiends in upper air.”

We feel our inability to give more than a faint conception of the grandeur of the scene that met the eyes and fell upon the ears of those who participated in the battle of Chickamauga. They can never cease to remember it. The roar of the four hundred cannon from Round Top and Cemetery Hill, at Gettysburg, which preceded Pickett’s charge, has never been equaled, though the casualties resulting from this grand artillery duel were comparatively few; while at Chickamauga all day long on Sunday there was a series of infantry charges upon batteries in chosen position, in which whole companies and regiments were swept away like the morning mist before the rays of the sun.

While sitting upon our horses listening to all this, we noticed a courier gallop up to General Wharton and deliver a message. We were ordered to dismount, as heretofore stated, and advance toward a battery that was shelling us from an eminence across the Chickamauga and about one-half mile distant. The order to advance was received with lusty cheers, for the men were chafing to go forward. The brigade was composed of the Eighth and Eleventh Texas, the First Kentucky, and the Fourth Tennessee Regiments. Col. Thomas Harrison, of the Eighth Texas, commanded the brigade as senior officer, and Lieut. Col. Paul Anderson was in command of the Fourth Tennessee, which was on the right of the brigade. We moved in column down the road leading to the river and, fording the stream near the mill, formed a line of battle in regular infantry style in the edge of low, level beech woods, and, placing our skirmishers a short distance in front, advanced through the woods. The enemy knew that we were coming and kept up an incessant shelling of the woods, some of our men being injured by limbs of trees torn off by the cannon balls. We had advanced but a short distance when the skirmishers became hotly engaged, which was the signal for a rapid advance, and we swept through the woods, driving the enemy before us. They rallied at a fence at the edge of the woodland, delivered an effective volley, and fell back across a little field to a new line behind a fence and on the edge of another woodland along an eminence where their artillery was planted. As our line emerged from the wood into the open space this battery, shotted with grape, and the line behind the fence, armed with seven-shooting Spencer rifles, opened on us, and a perfect hailstorm of deadly missiles filled the air. Being commanded to lie down, we did so for a few moments, and then arose and charged across the field. Just here we sustained our heaviest loss, and in a few moments the Fourth Tennessee had forty men shot down as we arose from the ground. As we rushed across the field the line sustaining the battery broke; and as they ran off many were killed and wounded, two or three hundred of them surrendering in a body. We were struck here with the gallantry of a Federal officer. He was on horseback and with drawn saber was attempting to hold his men to their position. He was killed, and his body fell into our hands. Papers upon his person indicated that he was colonel of the First Ohio Regiment. We went half a mile farther until we drove them beyond Crawfish Springs, the field hospital of the Federal army. This explained, what we could not understand at the time, why we were making a fight so far from the line of our infantry. The Federals had been driven from the line of the Chickamauga, and, this being the only water accessible to them, they had made Crawfish Springs their field hospital. We have learned since that we were fighting the division of Gen. George Crook. Both sides lost quite a number in killed and wounded. Where a stand had been made they were thick upon the ground. The line of attack for a mile was well defined; but, really, though we gained the fight and drove them from the field, our loss in killed and wounded was as great as theirs. The immense crowd of men, tents, vehicles, etc., at Crawfish Springs caused us to believe at first that we had captured the whole Federal army. Dead men in rail pens for protection and wounded men in large circus tents were scattered about over acres of ground, with the accustomed retinue of hospital assistants and not a few shirkers from the fight. This spring is one of the largest and purest of clear water I have ever seen. Its volume is large enough to supply a great city, and the stream that flows from it is that of a small river. After detailing a guard to hold the captives, the remainder of the command were marched back to their horses. The road was full of our ambulances, litters, etc., bearing off the dead and wounded. Here was presented that other phase of grim-visaged war, sickening to look upon: friends and comrades dead and dying who a few hours before were full of life and soldierly enthusiasm; men with their pale, ashy countenances turned toward the sky. Such scenes dissipate the excitement that the advance creates. A friend who was mortally wounded recognized me as we passed. As he evidently wished to say something to me, I stopped and took his cold, icy hand. Fixing his glassy eyes upon me, he said in a faltering voice: “Let my people at home know that I died like a true soldier.” He died that night; and his body rests somewhere upon the field his valor helped to win, though his name will never appear in the “count of the battle.” His was the fate of thousands of gallant spirits whose memory lives in the hearts of a small circle of acquaintances, but whose heroism has made their commanders great in song and story.

I have had a desire to visit these scenes ever since the war closed. Soldiers are rushed upon battle fields and rushed away, leaving a desire to visit them again. It was just twenty-four years ago and the same hour of the day when I last saw this field where Harrison’s Brigade made their fight, yet many things are true to the impressions left; and what a rush of buried memories are resurrected! The old mill where we crossed the Chickamauga looks the same. The woodman’s ax has leveled the dense beech grove on the north side through which we moved to the attack. A few scattering trees are still standing to indicate the character of timber that once stood upon the ground. Now it is an inclosed field, upon which is growing in rich luxuriance “the tall yellow corn.” I tried to follow the line of our advance, and suppose I did so from the fact that, the timber being cleared away, the high ground upon which the enemy’s battery was located is plainly to be seen. I fancied that I found the little hillock on the far edge of the woodland where we were ordered to lie down while the enemy’s shot sprinkled us with gravel. I cut a cornstalk from the spot where so many of our men were shot down, and have it yet as a memento. The low log house on Snodgrass Hill is still standing, and looks as it did then. It was here that we captured so many cannons. This point in the field is upon its southern extremity, situated between the road leading from La Fayette and the one leading from Crawfish Springs to Chattanooga. Just here the hardest fighting occurred. The field is still an immense rugged and woody forest, and no particular marks can be seen except now and then the tall stump of a tree. All through the woods for miles the bodies of the trees have been chopped by curio hunters. In a dense jungle at the foot of Snodgrass Hill I noticed a number of graves. The letters on the rotted boards indicated that they were Alabamians. The Dyer, Vittitoe, Glenn, and Ross houses have been preserved, and look as they did then. But after traveling over the field for hours, I might say with truth that there is nothing here to tell the stranger of the spot where one of the bloodiest battles in the world’s history was fought. Hundreds of brave men of both armies were buried here in their blankets, and hardly a sign seems to mark their resting place. But the name and fame of Chickamauga will live in history as long as Lookout lifts its rocky ribs to the skies or the river of death winds its way to the sea. As I stood there musing I could not but ask myself the questions: Where are the men who were actors in this bloody drama a quarter of a century ago? Where is the spirit that pervaded this immense host and drove them to deeds of blood and slaughter? The glory, pomp, and circumstance of war have departed, and to such as survived that field and the long years that have passed since then it seems as a shadowy dream, without the semblance of reality.

But to resume: On Sunday night we slept upon the field near General Longstreet’s headquarters, at the foot of Snodgrass Hill. At an early hour the Fourth Tennessee was ordered to report to him for orders. We then anticipated a renewal of the battle. He sent us forward toward Chattanooga to report the whereabouts of the enemy. I remember that we passed a little white house near the Chattanooga Road. As we approached it, I noticed a hog running through the woods with a soldier’s amputated leg in its mouth. This was one of our field hospitals, the window of which was some three or four feet from the ground. The surgeons within as they amputated a limb would throw it out of the window. The pile outside was so high that they would have to brush away the topmost limbs. Just beyond here was an elevated plateau where a hard struggle had taken place. As many as six batteries of the enemy had been broken to pieces. Horses were piled thick one upon the other, mangled and torn in every conceivable shape. Behind these batteries was a long line of Federals who had been killed where they lay. The fence had caught fire, and many of the bodies were burned into a dark crisp. Every tree and bush was marked by balls, and in some places large trees were torn to pieces. To see it, you would conclude that a small bird could not have survived the storm of bullets that swept like a cyclone through the forest.

I have seen paintings depicting the horrors of the battle field which I supposed were overdrawn; but this idea was dispelled at Chickamauga, and I appreciate now the fact that the imagination cannot always do it justice. All through the woods were telegraph wires thrown over the top of the bushes, connecting every part of the Federal line. These were incased in something resembling a cotton rope. Our men utilized them for bridle reins. Everywhere we found abandoned property and gathered up many prisoners—indicating not only a defeat, but a rout of the enemy. We sent back couriers all day long with this information, but no pursuit was made. We went forward on Missionary Ridge as far as Rossville and in sight of Chattanooga, where great consternation existed among the enemy. We were informed that some of them were escaping to the north side of the Tennessee River. On Tuesday, the 22d, with the remainder of General Wheeler’s Cavalry Corps, we came through McFarland’s Gap and skirmished with the enemy close up to the corporate limits of Chattanooga. We captured their signal flag on the point of Lookout. Its operator worked his machine until hands were laid upon him. We skirmished all day, losing some men in killed and wounded. In the evening we were withdrawn, and here ended the battle of Chickamauga.

The humblest soldier believes we could easily have captured the Federal army on Monday, the 21st of September. The superior valor of the Confederate soldier was again published to the world, but the full measure which soldierly courage had won at fearful cost was permitted to slip away. I fully concur in the comment made by a gallant Federal officer, in speaking of Chickamauga the other day, that “it was the bravest standing-up fight of the Civil War.” It has never been depicted as have been the battle fields of Virginia; but no field save Gettysburg, where the forces engaged were larger, can show such a list of killed and wounded as lay upon that field on Sunday night after the battle. The best-authenticated reports from both sides place the killed and wounded alone at 34,000. General Bragg had about 55,000 men, and General Rosecrans had about 65,000 or 70,000. The great battle of Waterloo did not reach this per centum by one-half.The Confederates captured 8,000 or 10,000 (not including their wounded), 51 pieces of artillery, 15,000 stands of arms, a large amount of ordinance stores and camp equipage. The enemy were driven from every portion of the field, leaving it in possession of the Confederates. It was fought on ground of their own choosing. In some parts they had erected breastwork protection that had to be assailed by Confederates, frequently in exposed fields; but they were driven from every inch of the field, leaving their killed and wounded in our possession. The Confederate loss in killed and wounded amounted to 17,300, and the Federal loss in killed and wounded 16,800—this for the reason that the Confederates, being the attacking party, were, of course, the more exposed.