BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA—1863.
I am now attempting to write from this Lookout Mountain, one of the most picturesque as well as interesting places on the American continent. Near by and round about here some of the greatest episodes in the world's history transpired near the close of that eventful year, 1863.
Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, where the lives of sixty-five thousand Americans were either destroyed or more or less wrecked.
A feeling of philosophy and awe prompts me to ask why all this great sacrifice of human life, misery and suffering?
Was the Great God that made man now looking on this awful scene of carnage and woe again repenting that He had made wicked, rebellious and murderous man; or was it a part of His omnipotent plan for man's inherent folly and wickedness driving him to destroy his fellowman?
Whatever it was it seems to have been accomplished here amid these towering mountains.
But so it was and I, one insignificant actor in the grand drama, am still permitted to live and recount some of the thrilling scenes as they were enacted. It is beyond my power to describe minutely and correctly all the thrilling sights that I witnessed on this eventful occasion (Battle of Chickamauga) and I shall refer to those only that concern myself and my Kentucky comrades, unless incidentally it shall appear necessary to my story.
I will, therefore, not attempt to note the maneuvering, the marching and counter-marching, back and forth, up and down the Chickamauga Valley, in and about Rossville and Crawfish Springs and their vicinity; all of which, at that time, seemed to me was but the waving of the red flag in the face of Rosecrans in "I dare you to come out" spirit on the part of Bragg.
Whatever motives, schemes and strategy it contained we all knew, rank and file, field and staff, that we were on the eve of momentous events. We all knew that here the question of "Greek meeting Greek" would soon again be tested and two of the mightiest armies of modern times would be locked in mortal combat. We had not long to wait for on the morning of the nineteenth (September, 1863) an occasional boom, boom, away to the right and front told us of the coming storm that was about to break over and sweep Chickamauga Valley with a mighty avalanche of thunder and horror that shook the very earth itself. Slowly but steadily the roar of artillery increased and by the middle of the afternoon became almost incessant.
Longstreet's Virginians had come out to show the Western army how to fight and they were now learning that Rosecrans' Western veterans could give instructions in the art of war as well as they and that they were not facing the aliens and wage soldiers that constituted a large part of the Army of the Potomac. They also found, as the battle progressed, that the Western army of the South knew as well and were as willing to "stand up Johnnie" and give and take blow for blow as they. The evening wore on and occasional reports from the front brought news that the Confederates were holding their own and a little better.