It is no derogation to the manhood of soldiers whose valor had been fully proved, to say, that the tears of joy coursed down over many a war-worn face. With surprising alacrity we were in line of march, moving around and down the eastern slope, our minds attuned to the enjoyment of the most picturesque view I ever beheld.
Before us lay the vast amphitheatre of the Chattanooga Valley. The broad shining river curving around the north of the town, flashing the sunlight from its bosom as it came, swept down until it struck the bed rock beneath our feet, where turning sharply to the right it swept between the cliff and the great toe of Moccasin Point, then turning abruptly to the north, bathing the bottom of the gigantic foot as it went, turned the mighty heel at Waldron Ridge.
The east and south bounded by the majestic crescent of Missionary Ridge, buttressed upon the west by the cloud-hung battlements of Lookout Mountain, clad in the variegated paraphernalia of autumn foliage; the whole softly illuminated by the mellow radiance of an Indian summer day, presented a picture that may be treasured in the memory as one of nature’s masterpieces.
As we crossed the valley we had the pleasure of witnessing the magnificent charge of the center as it moved out from the line of Orchard Knob, crossed the intervening plain, flowed with a resistless tide over the rifle pits at the foot of the ridge, and then, without orders, every man his own commander, surged like a huge swarm of blue flies up the rugged side of Missionary Ridge, while the half a hundred rebel cannon bellowed overhead, frescoing the air with the smoke of bursting shells. But up they went hurling the rebels from their vantage ground upon the crest, and turning his own cannon upon him “sped the parting guest,” stamping out the last vestige of rebel claim to the Chattanooga Valley, and securing to the Union army permanent possession of this great “gateway to Georgia.”
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.