Forrest, on the right, was immediately engaged. “We’ve stirred up a yaller-jacket’s nest,” he said, and sent to General Polk a request for Armstrong’s division of his own corps. The centre needing cavalry, too, there was returned only Dibbrell’s brigade. Dibbrell’s men were dismounted, and together with John Pegram’s division—also, in this battle, acting foot soldiers—began a bloody, continued struggle. The point of the blue wedge had been four infantry brigades and one of cavalry, but now the thickness was disclosed, and it fairly proved to be Rosecrans in position. While the grey had moved up the Chickamauga, that able blue strategist, under the cover of night, had moved down the opposite bank. The grey crossed—and found their right enveloped! The Fourteenth Army Corps, George H. Thomas commanding, was here, and later there were reinforcements from the Twenty-first, Crittenden’s corps. The storm, beginning with no great fury, promptly swelled until it attained the terrific. Forrest sent again for infantry support. None came, the centre having its own anxieties. “If you want to git a thing done, do it yourself,” quoth Forrest, and rode up to John Pegram. “We’ve got to have more fighters and I’m going to fetch them. Hold your ground, General Pegram, I don’t care what happens!”
“All right, sir. Neither do I,” said Pegram, and held it, with the loss of one fourth of his command. The pall of smoke settled, heavily, heavily! The dismounted troops fought here in the open, here behind piled brushwood and fallen logs, while the few grey batteries spoke from every little point of vantage. From the woods in front leaped the volleys of the blue, came whistling the horrible shells. The brushwood was set afire, the cavalrymen moving from place to place. They fought like Forrest’s men. Rifle barrels grew too hot to touch; all lips were blackened with cartridge powder. There was a certain calmness in the face of storm, sotto voce remarks, now and then a chuckling laugh. The finger of Death was forever pointing, but by now the men were used to Death’s attitudinizing. They took no great account of the habitual gesture. When he came to sweep with his whole arm, then of course you had to get out of his way! The hot day mounted and the clangour of the right mounted. Back came Forrest, riding hard, at his heels the infantry brigades of Wilson and Walthall. A line of battle was formed; Wilson and Walthall, Dibbrell and Pegram and Nathan Bedford Forrest advancing with a yell, coming to close range, pouring volley after volley into the dense, blue ranks. The dense, blue ranks answered; Death howled through the vale of Chickamauga. Wilson’s men took a battery, hard fought to the last. The grey brigade of Ector came up and formed on Wilson’s right. Fiercely attacked, Ector sent an aide to Forrest. “General Forrest, General Ector is hard pressed and is uneasy as to his right flank.” Forrest nodded his head, his eyes on a Federal battery spouting flame. “Tell General Ector not to bother about his right flank! I’ll take care of it.” The aide went back, to find Wilson’s brigade, on Ector’s left, in extremity. Ector sent him again, and he found Forrest now in action, directing, urging his men forward with a voice like a bull of Bashan’s and with a great, warlike appearance. “General Forrest, General Ector says that his left flank is now in danger!” Forrest turned, stamped his foot, and shouted, “Tell General Ector that, by God! I am here, and I will take care of his left flank and of his right flank!”
On went the grey charge, infantry and dismounted cavalry. Yaaaaih! Yaaaaihhh! Yaaaaiiihhhh! it yelled and tossed its colours. Back it pressed the blue, back, back! The first line went back, the second line went back ... and then was seen through rifts in the smoke the great third line, breastworks in front.
George Thomas was a fighter, too, and he flung forward Brannan and Baird and Reynolds, with Palmer and Van Cleve of Crittenden’s corps. Out of the smoky wood the blue burst with thunder, flanking Wilson and opening a furious enfilading fire. It grew terrible, a withering blast before which none could stand. Wilson was forced back, the whole grey line was forced back. Forrest’s guns were always clean to the front. They must be gotten back—but so many of the horses were dead or dying, and so many of the artillerymen. Those left put strength to the pieces, got them off, got them back through the brush in ways that could afterwards hardly be remembered. There was a piece entirely endangered—all the horses down and most of the men. Forrest shouted to four of his mounted escort. Cavalry dropped into the places of battery horses and drivers. In a twinkling they were harnessed—off went cavalry with the gun through the echoing wood, the smoke wreaths, and the shouting. The grey went back not far: the blue but regained their first position. It was high noon. Then entered the fight the divisions of Liddell and Cheatham.
Liddell had two thousand men. Bursting through the undergrowth they came into hot touch with Baird’s re-forming lines. They broke the brigades of King and Scribner; they took two batteries; yelling, they pursued their victory. The smoke lifted. The two thousand were in the concave of a blue sickle, their line overlapped, right and left—Brannan’s men now and R.W. Johnson, of McCook’s corps. Liddell, wheeling to the right, beat from that deadly hollow a justifiable retreat.
Cheatham came over a low hill with five brigades. It was a veteran division, predestined to grim fighting. Down on the Alexander Bridge road he formed his line, then, as Walker’s commands were pressed back, as the hurrahing blue columns swept forward, he entered the battle with the precision of a stone from David’s sling. The blue wavered, broke! In rushed Cheatham’s thousands, driving the foe, fiercely driving him. The foe withdrew behind his breastworks, and from that shelter turned against the grey a concentrated fire of musketry and artillery. The grey stood and answered with fury. The ground was all covered with felled trees, piles of brush-wood, timber shaken down like jackstraws. No alignment could be kept; the men fired in groups or as single marksmen. As such they strove to advance, as such they were mowed down. The blue began to hurrah. Palmer of Crittenden’s corps came swinging in with a flanking movement.
But Palmer’s hurrahing lines were checked, as had been Brannan’s and Johnson’s. In through the woods, now all afire, came A. P. Stewart’s division of Buckner’s corps. Alabama and Tennessee, three thousand muskets, it struck Palmer’s line and forced it aside. Van Cleve came to help, but Van Cleve gave way, too, pressed by the grey across the vast, smoke-filled stage to the ridge crowned by earthworks that like a drop-scene closed the back. The roar of battle filled all space; officers could not be heard, nor, in the universal smoke, could waved sword or hat be seen. Off to the right, Forrest’s bugles were ringing. Now and then drums were beaten, but this noise seemed no louder than woodpeckers tapping, lost in the crash of the volleys. Alabama and Tennessee pressed on. It was half past two o’clock.
Hood had three brigades of his own division and three of Bushrod Johnson’s, and now, from the Lee and Gordon’s Mills road, Hood, unleashed at last, entered the battle. Into it, yelling and firing, double-quicked his tall grey lines. He came with the force of a catapult. Yaaaih! Yaaaiiiihhh! yelled Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Texas. They struck the Chattanooga road and drove the blue along it, toward the westering sun. Up at a double swung the fresh blue troops of Negley and Wood, Davis and Sheridan. In the descending day they pushed the grey again to the eastward of the contested road.
At sunset in came Patrick Cleburne, general beloved, marching with his division over wildly obstructed roads from Hill on the extreme right. But it was late and the dark and smoky day was closing down. Night came, filled with the smell and taste of burned powder and of the wood smoke from all the forest afire. The firing became desultory, died away, save for now and then a sound of skirmishers. The two armies, Army of Tennessee, Army of Cumberland, rested.
They rested from strife, but not from preparation for strife. The two giants, the blue and the grey, were weary enough, but between Chickamauga and the slopes of Missionary Ridge they did small sleeping that Saturday night, the nineteenth of September, 1863. All night rang the axes. “Log-works,” said the grey giant. “At dawn, I am going to storm log-works.” Fifty-seven thousand strong was the blue giant and the grey about the same. “To-morrow’s fight,” said both, “is going to lay over to-day’s.” “Where,” said, in addition, the grey—“where is General Longstreet?”