In ten minutes, possibly, we were across the field and at the beginning of the ascent of the Ridge. Instantly the blaze of Rebel musketry was in our faces, and we began firing in return. It helped little, the foe was so hidden behind logs and stones and little breastworks. Still we charged, and climbed a fence in front of us and fired and charged again. Then the order was given to lie down and continue firing. That moment someone cried, "Look to the tunnel! They're coming through the tunnel." Sure enough, through a railway tunnel in the mountain the gray-coats were coming by hundreds. They were flanking us completely.
"Stop them!" cried our colonel to those of us at the right. "Push them back." It was but the work of a few moments for four companies to rise to their feet and run to the tunnel's mouth, firing as they ran. Too late! an enfilading fire was soon cutting them to pieces. "Shall I run over there too?" I said to the colonel. We were both kneeling on the ground close to the regimental flag. He assented. When I rose to my feet and started it seemed as if even the blades of grass were being struck by bullets. As I ran over I passed many of my comrades stretched out in death, and some were screaming in agony. For a few minutes the whole brigade faltered and gave way.
Colonel Matthies, our brigade commander, was sitting against a tree, shot in the head. Instantly it seemed as if a whole Rebel army was concentrated on that single spot. For a few moments I lay down on the grass, hoping the storm would pass over and leave me. Lieutenant Miller, at my side, was screaming in agony. He was shot through the hips. I begged him to try to be still; he could not. Now, as a second line of the enemy was upon us, and the first one was returning, shooting men as they found them, I rose to my feet and surrendered. "Come out of that sword," shrieked a big Georgian, with a terrible oath. Another grabbed at my revolver and bellowed at me "to get up the hill quicker than hell." It was time, for our own batteries were pouring a fearful fire on the very spot where we stood. I took a blanket from a dead comrade near me, and at the point of the bayonet I was hurried up the mountain. We passed lines of infantry in rifle pits and batteries that were pouring a hail of shells into our exposed columns. Once I glanced back, and—glorious sight!—I saw lines of bluecoats at our right and center, storming up the ridge.
In a few minutes' time I was taken to where other prisoners from my regiment and brigade were already collected together in a hollow. We were quickly robbed of nearly everything we possessed and rapidly started down the railroad tracks toward Atlanta. While we were there in that little hollow General Breckenridge, the ex-Vice President of the United States, came in among us prisoners to buy a pair of Yankee gauntlets. I sold him mine for fifteen dollars (Confederate money).
General Grant's victorious army was already over the Ridge and in rapid pursuit. Taking the Ridge and Lookout Mountain cost the Union army well on to six thousand dead and wounded. The Rebels lost as many, or more, so that twelve thousand human beings were lying dead, or in agony, that night among the hills of Chattanooga. Not long before, thirty thousand had been killed and wounded, on both sides, close to this same Ridge. Forty-two thousand men shot for the possession of a single position. That was war.
That night as the guards marched us down the railroad we saw train after train whiz by loaded with the wounded of the Rebel army. The next day when they halted us, to bivouac in the woods, we were amazed to see quite a line of Union men from East Tennessee marching along in handcuffs. Many of them were old men, farmers, whose only crime was that they were true to the Union. They were hated ten times worse than the soldiers from the North. These poor men now were allowed no fire in the bivouac, and had almost nothing to eat. "They will everyone be shot or hanged," declared the officer of our guard to me. I do not know what happened to these poor Tennesseeans. Shortly after, we Northern prisoners were put aboard cattle cars and started off for Libby Prison at Richmond, most of us never to see the North or our homes again.
CHAPTER X
In Libby Prison—Life there—"Belle Isle"—All prisons bad—The great escape—"Maryland, My Maryland."