"Heavy skirmishing began quite early in the morning along the picket lines. This gradually swelled into the incessant roar of pitched battle. At about nine o'clock we were ordered to the front at a double-quick. We crossed a field, then into a wood where we met the fire of the enemy. Being a musician I was counted a noncombatant, and my duties during battle consisted in helping the wounded back to hastily extemporized hospitals.
"So on we charged into the woods, already densely filled with smoke. Then the bullets flew swiftly about us, and men began falling along the line. I set to work helping the wounded to the rear. I had just been to the hospital with a poor fellow from my company, and hastened back to where I had last seen the regiment. They had made a flank movement to the left, but I, supposing that they had advanced and were driving the enemy like chaff before them, traveled straight on through the woods, and out into an open field. What a sight was there! Dead and wounded Confederates lay thickly strewn in every direction. I was really in what had just been the Confederate lines, and was in imminent peril of being shot or captured.
"Several of the wounded spoke to me, 'O Yank! for God's sake, give me a drink of water,' I felt alarmed at my position, but I could not resist the appeals of these poor fellows. So I gave water to many from the canteens that I found scattered about the field. I spread blankets for others who asked me; dragged some of them into the shade, for the sun was very hot. And so I spent a considerable time among them, doing such little offices as I could. For these services they were very grateful, some of them calling down the blessings of heaven upon my head. I have always been glad that I incurred this risk of life and liberty for these dying men. But at last I felt that I dared not stop longer, and started to retrace my steps to the woods, when I heard a terrible wailing and moaning a few yards to my right. I rushed to the spot and saw a poor Confederate boy, about my own age, at the foot of a great poplar tree, in the midst of a brush heap, trying to spread his blanket. I did not at first see what the cause of his terrible outcry was. 'What is the matter, Johnnie?' I asked. He lifted his face to me, and I shall never forget the awful sight! A bullet had shot away the anterior part of each eye and the bridge of the nose, and in this sightless condition he was trying in the midst of the brush heap to spread his blanket and lie down to die! As he moved about upon his hands and knees the ends of the dry twigs, stiff and merciless as so many wires, would jag his bleeding and sightless eyeballs. I could not leave him in this condition, and so helped him from the brush heap to a smooth, shady place, spread his blanket for him, put a canteen of water by him, and then ran for the Union lines, not a moment too soon.
"All day the battle raged with terrible fury until long after the shades of night had fallen. Indeed, the heaviest musketry I ever heard occurred some time after pitch darkness had completely enveloped us. My supper that night was a very plain one. A piece of corn bread, or hoe cake, that I had abstracted from the haversack of a dead Southerner, and a canteen of cold water constituted that simple meal. I really felt a sense of gratitude toward the poor Confederate, who had undoubtedly baked the corn bread that morning, little thinking that it was destined to be eaten by a miserable Yankee drummer boy. But such is the fate of war.
"It had been very hot during the day, but the night was bitterly cold. There was a heavy frost that night, and under a thick blanket upon the bare ground, I slept by fitful snatches. Let me tell you, friends, that the most terrible place upon earth is a battlefield at night. The groans of the wounded men and horses are awful beyond anything I ever heard. All night I could hear their heartrending cries, but in the pitch darkness could do nothing to help them. How many times I thought of my far away northern home during that awful night. Should I live through the morrow? for the battle would certainly be resumed with the return of daylight. Should I ever see mother, brothers and sisters, home and friends again?"
Here the Doctor sang softly and slowly part of the pathetic old war song:
"Comrades brave around me lying,
Filled with thoughts of home and God;
For well they know that on the morrow
Some must sleep beneath the sod."
The little party were deeply impressed, for the Doctor was a good story teller, and was himself much affected at this point.
"The much longed for, yet dreaded, daylight dawned at last. It was Sunday morning. For some reason hostilities were not immediately resumed. The sun rose in beauty and splendor, warming our chilled bones and blood in a way that was exceedingly grateful to us. For a little time all was so quiet and still that it only lacked the sweet tones of church bells, calling us to the house of God, to have made us forget that we were enemies, and have induced us to rest from our fearful, uncanny works for this holy Sabbath at least. But no! soon the battle was on again with greater vigor, if possible, than ever. Before noon our flanks were completely routed; and, but for that magnificent man, the peer of any soldier of any nation or age, General George H. Thomas, it is doubtful whether I should be here now, telling my little story. While Rosecranz, whipped and beaten, fled to Chattanooga and telegraphed to Washington that everything was lost, and the Cumberland army a thing of the past, General Thomas, with a few thousand men, checked and held at bay this great Southern army, flushed with victory though it was. How the mighty host rolled and surged against this single army corps, but could not break nor beat them back. While Crittenden's and McCook's corps were completely routed and disorganized, Thomas with his 14th corps thus stood the brunt of battle, and saved the Army of the Cumberland from total annihilation. Well may we call him the Rock of Chickamauga!
"My father was quartermaster-sergeant of the regiment and I saw him for the first time during the battle on Sunday morning. We were trudging along with the rout—for it could not be called army that Sunday afternoon—toward Chattanooga. We knew that we had sustained defeat, but we did not realize how desperate the situation was. A brigadier-general was passing us, when a private rushed up to him and asked, 'O General! where is the 87th Indiana?"—I think that was the regiment he mentioned. 'There is no 87th Indiana. All is lost! Get to Chattanooga!' he shouted, and galloped toward the city, unattended by any of his staff.