The Chattanooga Campaign: With especial reference to Wisconsin's participation therein

by Michael Hendrick Fitch

Part of Stovall’s brigade came against the regular brigade, but made no impression. Helm, the left of Breckenridge’s line, attacked the right of the regulars’, Scribner’s line. The Confederate line was shattered and went to pieces. Helm, in bravely trying to rally his men was killed; two of Helm’s colonels were also killed, and two others wounded.

Adams’s brigade was gaining the rear of King, when Stanley’s brigade of Negley’s long delayed division came into the Kelly field, and formed at right angles with the road and the Union line swept to the north, past King’s left, charged into the woods upon Adams’s brigade, and drove it away. Sometime during their attacks Adams was wounded and taken prisoner. Breckenridge’s attack was a failure, but the firing by the infantry and the artillery was terrific while it lasted. Cleburne’s division advanced while Breckenridge was still in the fight; his attack covered part of Baird’s and Johnson’s. Cleburne was a very capable officer; brave to the utmost; still his attack completely failed. Polk’s brigade of that division assaulted Starkweather. With regard to this attack Polk states in his official report[20] “My line from right to left, soon became furiously engaged, the enemy pouring a most destructive fire of canister and musketry into my advancing line—so terrible indeed, that my line could not advance in face of it, but lying down, partially protected by the crest of the hill, we continued the fight for an hour and a half.”

Cleburne states in his report[21] “Polk’s brigade and the right of Wood’s encountered the heaviest artillery fire I have ever experienced. I was now within short canister range of a line of log breastworks, and a hurricane of shot and shell swept the woods from the unseen enemy in my front.” This charge was also a failure, but most destructive to the Confederates. Wood reported[22] a loss in his brigade of 96 killed and 680 wounded. The great disparity of the wounded, in comparison with the killed, showed that the Confederate lines did not get very close to the Union boys. The Union forces were so pleased with having repulsed so forceful an attack, that they sent forward a strong skirmish line. General Hill—who was forming from the reserves a stronger second attack—paused, and concluded he would have to resist an attack from the Union line.

Walker’s reserve corps of two divisions of five brigades was therefore moved forward and distributed along the broken points of the first line. During the day successive charges were made from Palmer’s position to the Union left, by ten Confederate brigades along the Union line, which, however, they could not penetrate, nor could they get very close to the breastworks. Colquitt, commander of one of these brigades, fell as well as several of his officers, and General Deshler of Cleburne’s division was killed. Govan of Walker’s troops gained the rear of Baird’s division by marching around Baird’s left and driving away the thin unprotected Union line at that point. This second advance—which was actually another phase of the continuous attack from 9:30 to nearly noon—had extended its right much further beyond the Union left, and by a wide left wheel it had straddled the Lafayette road. One brigade on the right of the road, another on the left, boldly threw out skirmishers and advanced towards General Reynolds’s rear, beyond the Kelly house. It was a very threatening and dangerous situation. The Confederate line in front—from Baird around to Brannan—opened a heavy fire upon the barricades. It looked for a while, as if the movement would succeed in destroying the heretofore invincible line of General Thomas’s troops; but Thomas saw every movement and knew the weakness of the left beyond Baird. Brannan had a reserve brigade—Fred Van Derveer’s—and this arrived just in time to form in front of the Confederate brigades in the Kelly field. It changed front under fire, charged the Confederate line, broke it, and finally drove it clear of the Union left. Then the reserve brigade returned to a point near the Kelly house. Van Derveer’s brigade had come, at this time, with an order from General Rosecrans to Brannan, to report his whole division to General Thomas. It was under the supposition that Brannan had done so, that Rosecrans soon after issued the fatal order to Wood to close up on Reynolds. But the enemy had gained the line, where Beatty had before stood. Palmer sent his reserve brigade (Grose’s), in accordance with General Thomas’s order; his brigade formed double lines, and with cheers they charged into the woods and the enemy was driven away. Then Barnes, of Van Cleve’s division, was placed on or near the left; the Union left was henceforth safe.

THE CONFEDERATE ATTACK UPON THE UNION RIGHT

About 11 o’clock the successive attacks of the Confederate divisions from the left to the right had reached Longstreet’s wing; they were continued with a charge by Stewart upon Reynolds’s position; it involved Hazen or Palmer, who had been transferred to the right of Reynolds and to the left of Brannan. This was the beginning of the general assault on the Union right, which came so near being disastrous to General Rosecrans’s army. This attack of Stewart’s took place at the time when Adams and Stovall of Breckenridge’s division were entering the open Kelly field upon the Confederate right. General Stewart acknowledges, in his report, that his charge was repulsed with great slaughter. The division next to Stewart took up the assault. It was Bushrod R. Johnson’s supported by Law and Kershaw. Just before this attack an aide of General Thomas had come to General Rosecrans to ask again for support on the left. In riding close to the line between General Reynolds’s and General Brannan’s divisions he observed that the latter—Brannan being in echelon with Reynolds—did not make a continuous line, but a broken one. The position of General Brannan was nevertheless just as effective, and perhaps more so, than if he had been in the main line. General Thomas J. Wood’s division, which had just replaced Negley’s division, was next to the right of Brannan but in the main line; it joined, however, its left to Brannan’s right; wherefore the aide reported to General Rosecrans that Reynolds’s right was unprotected. Brannan had been ordered to go to General Thomas’s left, but on account of being threatened with an attack on his front he remained with two of his brigades, and sent Van Derveer’s, his reserve brigade. Rosecrans dictated at once an order to Wood, “to close upon Reynolds as fast as possible and support him.” Thereupon Wood withdrew from the line, and marched to the rear of Brannan, just as the Confederate charge, under B. R. Johnson, reached its old front. Rosecrans issued his order to Wood supposing that Brannan had gone with his whole division to the Kelly field. Brannan reported what action he had taken, and that Reynolds had approved it. Rosecrans gave his approval instantly; but the fatal order had been issued to Wood some minutes before, and consequently his division was moving out, just as the eight brigades made the attack. Longstreet had massed these brigades opposite the Union centre. They were formed in three lines, lapped over the right of Brannan and the left of Davis—whose division was on the right of Wood—and moved close to the gap; they widened the awful space left by Wood; the attack struck Wood’s rear brigade (Buell’s) and shattered it. Brannan who was a very able commander threw back his right, but lost a part of Connell’s brigade in this movement. With great skill and considerable deliberation he re-established his line on the Horse Shoe Ridge, near the Snodgrass house, on a line nearly perpendicular to the one from which he had retreated. Although Wood’s division was subjected to a heavy attack, he—with the aid of General Thomas, who had just come from the left wing—succeeded in establishing his remaining troops in prolongation of Brannan’s new line, and in reaching towards, but not entirely, Reynolds’s right, which retired slightly. Hazen’s brigade of Palmer’s division filled up the gap between Reynolds and Wood, thus making the Union line a nearly continuous one from Snodgrass Hill to the left of Baird, where Barnes’s brigade had taken position. The shape of the line was that of a very flattened crescent, with the convex side towards the enemy; it was greatly shortened, however, by the losses of the 19th, and the cutting off on the right of two whole divisions, Davis’s and Sheridan’s, a part of Wood’s, and some of Van Cleve’s. These were now beyond the Confederate line and were attacked by heavy forces while on the march, driving them from the field. Negley with his remaining brigade was caught in the gap from whence he drifted towards Brannan. General H. V. Boynton said about this affair on this part of the field: “Negley, gathering up much artillery, was ordered by General Thomas to post it on the crest overlooking the field in front of Baird’s left, but instead he took it to Brannan’s right. This was a good position for it and it could have been of great service there later, when the Confederate line made an advance to that point, but he retired with it in haste toward Rossville, ordering all the artillery to follow him, before he was attacked.”

Jefferson C. Davis was a fine and brave officer. He had only two brigades, Carlin’s and Heg’s; the latter was commanded by Martin, for Colonel Heg had been mortally wounded the day before. These brigades had done some wonderful fighting on the day before, when they were greatly reduced. After the break they could not stand against the Confederate charge, wherefore they drifted towards Rossville. Davis and Sheridan were both on the move by the left flank closing up toward the left, when the Confederate charge struck them. Van Cleve with his remaining brigades in motion—Barnes had gone to the left—was thrown into disorder by the rapid dash of some artillery through the ranks, while a portion of them rallied with Wood. General Lytle of the Sheridan brigade was killed while trying to rally his troops. These divisions and brigades went back, together with Wilder’s mounted brigade, carrying with them Generals Rosecrans, McCook, and Crittenden, who at that time were to the right of the break. The line of their retreat was through McFarland’s Gap in Missionary Ridge, south of Rossville. These troops did not go further back than to Rossville, but Rosecrans, McCook, and Crittenden kept on to Chattanooga. Boynton says, that Sheridan’s division was in good order when it arrived at Rossville. Davis tried his best to reform his troops near to McFarland’s Gap; he did march them back to the field, but reached it too late in the evening. In the neighborhood of the two gaps, McFarland’s and Rossville, were some ten thousand fugitive troops; the way was open for them to have been led either to the right or to the left of the Union line. But who was there who had rank and authority enough to lead them, while their army and corps commanders were still further to the rear? James A. Garfield, Gates P. Thruston, chief of McCook’s staff, Surgeons Gross and Perkins, medical directors of the Fourteenth and Twentieth corps, rode back and joined General Thomas. Sheridan was requested by Thruston, the adjutant-general and chief of staff to General McCook, at McFarland’s Gap—by a message from General Thomas—to march to the latter’s relief, but he insisted on marching back to Rossville and from there taking the Lafayette road to the left flank of the army.[23] This was a most out of the way road to the battlefield. Sheridan wanted to report quickly to General Thomas when the break occurred and was doing that by way of Rossville. It was dark before he arrived near to the left; the Union troops had then begun the backwood movement.

After the second attack on the left by Walker’s and Hill’s corps, Breckenridge again came in behind Baird, but was repulsed by Van Derveer, Grose, and Willich. All was quiet on the left, while heavy firing continued on the right, when General Thomas rode over to the right to look at matters there. This occurred during the adjustment after the break, and he placed what remained of Wood’s on the left of Brannan, the latter having taken his position prior to that on Horse Shoe Ridge. General Thomas did not return to the left until about 5:30 p. m.

There had been no intimation to the four commanders on the left—Baird, Johnson, Palmer, and Reynolds—that everything had not gone well with the right. They could get no message from Thomas for two or three hours. At this juncture, fearing another assault by the Confederate lines, and supposing that Thomas had been cut off from them, Palmer, Johnson, and Reynolds consulted with Baird and proposed that General Palmer, as the senior and ranking officer, be placed in command of their four divisions and march them off the field. General Baird refusing to join them, prevented this calamity. Had this been done, the Confederate right wing, confronting them, could have advanced unimpeded in the rear of the Union troops on Snodgrass Hill, about three-quarters of a mile directly in the rear of the Union left. In view of what happened later in the evening with regard to the successful falling back, it is not necessary to state what a probable disaster General Baird prevented.