When the review was over Grant ordered each commander to march his command to camp. The next week Grant had that same review over again. It annoyed Bragg as before. Review over with, we marched to camp again. The next week we got orders to get ready for the march to-morrow morning, heavy marching order, with eighty rounds of ammunition. Every man knew what that meant. Everybody knew we were going to take that ridge, or at least make the attempt, but the rebel General Bragg said it was nothing but that damned Yankee review again. The orders came from Grant after he had his lines all arranged, that when six cannons were fired in succession, 1-2-3-4-5-6, the whole line was to advance and take the first line of rebel breastworks. There is no doubt in my mind but that Grant thought that sufficiently far enough to go; with Hooker on Lookout Mountain; our communications opened up; with boatloads and carloads of supplies arriving, the rebels would not be very likely to hang onto Mission Ridge any very great length of time. We (the first brigade of Sheridan's division) were near those cannons, however, that gave the order to advance, and we went clear up to the top of the Ridge. We were after something to eat, and we got it, too. All the generals in the Union army could not stop us if they tried to after we got started up that Ridge. I remember in crossing the first line of trenches some of our boys fired into the trenches, and I made the remark that it was cowardly, but we went on, on and up. The color-bearer of Company C, with the colors, myself and Nelson of Company H were the first men upon that Ridge in the line of our brigade. The first thing I did after the rebels skedaddled was to grab a full haversack and jerk it off a wounded rebel captain's neck. He was shot in the shoulder and his hand lay on the mouth of the haversack on the down-hill side. I opened it and divided its contents with my comrades in the immediate vicinity. It was saturated with the rebel captain's blood, but we ate it all the same.
Mission Ridge was ours. The rebels were running down the other side of the Ridge and we shouted "Chickamauga, Chickamauga." The sun was just going down, beautiful and bright. It was a splendid sight to witness. In a short time General Sheridan made his appearance. At sight of the General, the boys clustered around him and commenced cheering that gallant commander. Some shouted for hard-tack, some for sow-belly and some for beef, while others shouted for whisky.
The General raised his hat off his head until silence prevailed, and said, "Boys, in less than two hours' time you will have all the hard-tack, all the sow-belly and all the beef you want; as for the whisky I can't say yet for sure."
And in less than that time the boats and railroad cars were unloaded without any detail being made for that purpose. There were sixteen hundred head of cattle driven up on that Ridge, and in an hour's time they were in the frying pan. You could see men as far as the eye could reach, several lines of them, with boxes of crackers on their shoulders. Sheridan made his word good, with the exception of the whisky. He advised with the surgeon-general, and he said, "No whisky, General. Your men will eat enough, and perhaps too much, without whisky;" and true enough, some died eating that night. You might wake up any time in the night and see men cooking and eating. A great many of us flung our blankets away coming up the Ridge. When it was time to lie down I went back to the battlefield for a blanket. The moon was full and shining bright. I found nothing to suit till I came to a rebel Colonel who had a fine, large, gray overcoat with large cape and trimmed with gold braid. I rolled him over and took it off; took it to camp under my arm thinking, "Now I will have something fine and warm to put about me;" but, alas! when I got nicely settled down for sleep I could not sleep. The thoughts of lying under that rebel overcoat and taking it off him in that lonely battlefield, overcame me. The way he appeared to me in the bright light of the moon made me think that I was robbing my dead enemy, when he was helpless to defend himself, and no witness to the action but the sweet silver moon. My heart filled with emotion and I got up and took it back and laid it over him, then returned to my company and lay down under a part of my comrade's blanket, and immediately went to sleep with a full ration in my stomach.
So ended the Battle of Mission Ridge, and the boys all felt happy. And let me say right here that those few sketches of mine are not dreams, nor misty recollections of the past. It is not a play that you might read of in your parlor, or see acted on the stage with fine sceneries and blue and red lights; but it is a living actuality—a play that we all had a hand in ourselves with a pure and manly motive—to save our country and protect our country's flag.
[ON THE BATTLEFIELD.]
From Chickamauga to the Close of the War—Wounded at Adairsville, Ga.—Nourished by a Union Woman.