CHAPTER XXIX.
PERSONAL ADVENTURES DURING THE BATTLE.
I had some personal adventures during the battle, two or three of which may be worth the reader's perusal. The lamented General Lytle, who was killed in the second day's fight at Chickamauga, held the right of McCook's corps most of the day; and when he saw the evening closing in on him he sent me down to the left, telling me to post on a mile or so and see how everything stood, saying that the service was of the utmost importance. This was on the 19th.
Away I went, first down in front of the rebel lines, and in full view of them, till I saw they were preparing to advance, when, dashing across the open place, I came over to our own front. I turned down it to a long break in the line; I then followed the general direction of our front for half a mile, when I reached one of our own batteries which I found to be literally dismantled. The caissons were blown into fragments, the guns dismounted, and the gunners were scattered, dead and wounded, thick around it. Poor fellows! they had been stricken down at their posts, torn and mangled, by shell and grape.
I had no time to stop, as much depended on my diligence; perhaps I held the lives of many men in my hands. I rode on, some three-quarters of a mile further, still seeing no troops, when I turned back. I passed the dismantled battery again, and stopped a moment to see if I could identify it, when one of the wounded men feebly called out:
"Soldier, cover me up; cover me up; I am cold; oh! so cold."
The supplicatory tones were hard to resist, but I saw the enemy advancing, and hastened back to the General. As I reached our line again, I hailed a body of troops with:
"What brigade is this?"