Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 102, June, 1876

by Various

Quickly getting the men under arms, Hazen moved his brigade behind Van Cleve to act as a support, and awaited the coming attack. It came like a whirlwind, and Van Cleve's lines were scattered like fallen leaves. On came the triumphant enemy in heavy masses, while Van Cleve's disordered horde swept back with it Hazen's supporting regiments. All but one. Colonel Aquila Wiley of the Forty-first Ohio Infantry, seeing the coming avalanche of fugitives, broke his line to the rear by companies and allowed the flying mass to pass through the intervals. Then instantly reforming his line, Wiley delivered a volley by battalion upon the advancing foe. The latter, his ranks loose, as usual in a headlong pursuit, was staggered and stopped in Wiley's front, but pressed forward on his right, and had got well to his rear in that direction before the guns of the Forty-first were reloaded. At a double-quick step Wiley changed front to the rear on his left company, and sent another volley among the swarming enemy on his right. Twice he repeated this manoeuvre, and, gaining ground to the rear with each change of front, kept back the enemy from front and flank until he could take his place in good order upon a new line on a ridge to the rear.

Meantime, Hazen was not idle. Seeing the inevitable result when Van Cleve's lines wavered, he dashed down the road to some unemployed batteries. These he got quickly into position to enfilade the enemy as he passed over Van Cleve's abandoned ground, and while Wiley with his Forty-first was striking in front and flank to clear himself of the surrounding foes, Hazen's batteries were pouring shells at short range into the well-ordered supporting troops which the enemy was hurrying forward to improve the success he had gained. Bragg had actually crossed the Rossville road and cut the Army of the Cumberland in two, with nothing in the gap but one regiment of three hundred men. But the enfilading artillery smote asunder the solid ranks which were to follow up the victory and left their advantage a barren triumph. Night fell and ended there the first day's battle.

The blessed night! better for the Army of the Cumberland then than thirty thousand fresh men. Under its sheltering mantle a thousand necessary things were done. We knew well enough that the struggle must be renewed in the morning, but we hoped that it would not be taken up on our side under such disadvantages as had been against us in the day just closed. So when, some time after dark, an order came to move down the road to the left, it was gladly obeyed. We were going into position, it was evident, though where and how none of us could tell in the darkness. The road and the woods on each side of it were full of troops, ambulances, ammunition and head-quarter wagons, artillery, and, lastly, stragglers hunting for their regiments. Now and then a wounded man, whose hurt did not prevent his walking, came along inquiring for the hospitals. There were not many of these, however, for the hospital service was pretty efficient, and the surgeons were located near the ground where the fighting had been.

Winding about through such surroundings for what seemed a long time, so slow was the movement and so frequent the halts to allow the staff-officer who was directing the march to verify the route, Palmer's division at length stacked arms on a slightly rising ground not many hundred yards in front of the Rossville road. There were troops to the left of us, and soon after we halted troops came up on our right. We knew by this that we were in the main line of battle as it was being formed for the next day's fight. There were sounds occasionally from the forest in front which told us that the enemy also was making his preparations for the morning, and there was moving of troops, wagons, artillery, stragglers and mounted officers in rear of us almost all night. Even our troops in line, tired as they were, were not quite still. The men lay upon the ground and talked of the events of the day. Company commanders were inquiring the fate of their missing men, and some of them were even counting up the guns lost by killed and wounded men, and wondering how they could account for them on their next ordnance returns. Waking and sleeping by turns, officers and men passed the chilly night as best they could until it was near the time when the first gray streaks of dawn should come. Then those who were sleeping were quietly aroused; the ranks were noiselessly formed; the stacks of arms were broken; the first sergeants passed along the fronts of their companies to verify the attendance; and then the men were allowed to sit down, guns in hand, to await the daybreak and be in instant readiness for an attack if the enemy should attempt an early surprise.

Daylight came, however, on the memorable 20th of September, and no attack had been made. The first thought, naturally, after apprehension of an early attack had gone, was to appease hunger and thirst. But there was little in the haversacks, and nothing in the canteens. Details of men were sent for water, and never returned. The enemy had possession of the springs we had used the day before, and our details walked unconsciously into his hands. There was not a drop of water on the whole field, and men and officers resigned themselves to the torments of thirst, a thousand times worse than the gnawings of hunger. But with daylight we could at least get some idea of our position. In front was a dense forest, in which nothing was to be seen except our own skirmishers a few yards in advance. Just behind us was an oblong open field, three hundred yards wide and thrice as long. On the other side of this field ran the Rossville road. Beyond our division, to the left, was Johnson's, and then Baird's division, the latter forming the extreme left of the army, and extending off into the woods beyond the lower end of the open field. To our right—though this we could not see, the line being in a dense forest—was the division of Reynolds; beyond him was Brannan, and then came Wood; and so on to the right of the army, in what further order we did not know. It was evident that the line had been hastily formed: the divisions had been placed just as they were picked up in the confusion of the night. No corps was together in the line, but it was made up of a division from one corps, then a division from another, and then one from a third corps, and so on. Thus it happened that the four divisions on the left of the line had with them no corps commander.

In the idle hour after daylight our brigade commander directed the construction of a barricade of rails and logs, a little more than knee-high, along the front of his command. Some of the troops on the left and the right followed the example. The supposition was that the game would be changed this day, and that we should stand for attack as the enemy had done the day before. There was no little satisfaction in thinking that Bragg's men would have a chance to walk up to a fire at least as murderous as we had faced when attacking them. If the haversacks were empty and the canteens had gone for water never to return, the cartridge-boxes were full, and each man had about him an extra package or two of cartridges.

The morning wore slowly away, and on our part of the line everything was remarkably quiet. There was some skirmishing toward the right between eight and nine o'clock, but evidently nothing serious. The barricade was finished, and there was nothing to do but to lie behind it and wish for water as the day grew warmer and thirst became more intense.—But what is that?

There was a sharp rattle of Springfield rifles from Baird's skirmishers, a third of a mile to our left and hidden from sight by the woods. In a moment came a crash of musketry which brought every man to his feet. Baird's skirmishers had been driven in, and his main line had hurled its thousands of bullets as the attacking enemy came into view. Instantly the answering fire was given, and then followed the continuous rattling roar of a fierce general engagement. Wounded men began to come out of the wood where Baird was as they made their way alone toward the hospitals or were carried off by the hospital corps. Suddenly, a hundred men with arms in their hands emerged from the woods into the open field behind Baird, straggling and without order. These were not wounded men. No: it was too plain that Baird's division was giving way. A moment more, and the lower end of the open field was filled with a dense mass of men as Baird's disordered lines poured forth out of the woods, which were swarming with the exultant enemy. Through and behind the retreating mass the mounted officers rode furiously, their swinging sabres flashing in the sun as they alternately commanded and exhorted their men to rally and breast the storm of lead which the enemy was hurling upon them. Then Johnson, whose division was next to Baird's, wheeled a regiment or two backward and opened fire on the enemy engaged with Baird. The troops of the latter were not running, but falling back, firing as they went. Suddenly, one of their colonels seized his regimental standard from the color-bearer and faced his horse toward the enemy, holding the flag high above his head. The men began to rally around this flag, and in a moment an imperfect line had been formed. The enemy's success was at an end. A moment more, and with a wild cheer Baird's men dashed forward and drove the enemy from their front.

Meanwhile, we were not idle spectators of all this. At the moment when Baird's men had been forced into the open field, and it seemed impossible to re-form them under the fire they were receiving, the skirmishers in front of Johnson's and Palmer's divisions broke out into a lively fire and came in at a run. Close behind them were the rapidly-advancing skirmishers of the enemy. As these came in sight of our position they took shelter behind trees and waited for their main force to come up. Soon the woods behind them were filled with the long, sweeping lines of Bragg's infantry, moving swiftly and steadily up to the attack. They reached their skirmishers, and as the latter fell in with the main body the whole broke into the peculiar shrill and fitful yell of the Southern soldiery, and rushed impetuously upon our line. From behind its barricade Hazen's brigade gave the yelling assailants two volleys, by front and rear rank, and then, as the enemy staggered under the regular blows, the command "Load and fire at will!" rang along the line. Out burst a swift storm of lead, before which the wasting ranks of the assailants first wavered, and then stopped to open a rapid but wild and diminishing fire against the barricade. For a moment or two their colors waved defiantly at their front as their officers rode among them in the vain endeavor to hold them to the hopeless effort; and then they turned and vanished into the deep recesses of the forest whence they came. Not as they came, however, but as a flying multitude of panic-stricken men, insensible to authority, conscious only of their defeat and their peril.

Ah! but this was quite different from yesterday's work, thought the men of Hazen's brigade. It is one thing to march up to an enemy waiting to receive you on his chosen ground, and another to lie quietly in position and let your enemy feel his way up until he is within fair range. This was the thought after the successful defence: before the fight it is a question whether it does not require greater steadiness of nerve to wait inactive for an attack than to rush forward in an onslaught. Officers and men in Palmer's division were in excellent spirits. They saw that their comrades on the right and the left had met with equally good fortune. Johnson's division on one side and Reynolds's on the other remained as steady as rocks.