Chapter II · The Chickamauga Campaign and Battle (continued 2)

The figures are taken from the official returns:

Union Confederate

Brannan—Three Brigades 1,977 Walker—Five Brigades 2,290

Baird—Three Brigades 975 Cheatham—Five Brigades 1,843

Johnson—Three Brigades 1,088 Cleburne—Three Brigades 1,743

Palmer—Three Brigades 1,165 Stewart—Three Brigades 1,674

Reynolds—Two Brigades 778 Breckenridge—Three Brigades 1,075

——— ———

Total 5,983 Total 8,625

There were 14 Union brigades and 19 Confederate. It will be seen that Brannan, who was not protected by works on the 20th, lost about 800 more than the highest loss of any of the Union divisions, which were protected. That is a practical illustration of the value of the precautions thus taken by the protected troops. Estimating Brannan’s loss on the 20th at 900, his loss on the 19th would be 1,077. This would reduce the total loss in the Union column above to 5,083. Considering that the Confederate divisions mentioned above encountered no other Union troops during the battle, except those five divisions mentioned, it will be understood that the five Union divisions by incurring a loss of 5,083 killed and wounded, inflicted a loss on the enemy of 8,625. Forrest’s loss does not appear but should be added to the latter; let this item be offset, however, by the losses to Beatty’s Stanley’s and Barnes’s brigades in their assistance on the left of Baird.

We will make a similar comparison of the losses on the right of the Union, and the left of the Confederate Army:

Union

Steedman 1,174—Two Brigades

Sheridan 1,090

Davis 944—Two Brigades

Wood 876—Two Brigades

Van Cleve 660

Negley 496

Brannan (estimate) 900

———

Total 6,140

Confederate

HoodSix Divisions, 6,881 (estimated)

Hindman

Buckner

Preston

The estimated Confederate loss given above has been made up in the following manner. The official Confederate loss is given by Colonel W. F. Fox in his Regimental Losses in the Civil War as 15,881 killed and wounded at Chickamauga, the Confederate loss of the troops opposed to the above named Union divisions can be found by adding to 8,625—the Confederate losses in the first table given above—the estimated loss of the Confederate cavalry, probably enough to bring the figures to 9,000, and deducting that from 15,881, the total Confederate loss is secured. The result makes 6, 881 killed and wounded—as given in the last table—by the seven Union divisions mentioned above, at a cost to the latter of 6,140 killed and wounded. Longstreet gives in his report his loss at 7,594 killed and wounded; deducting Stewart’s loss from this sum leaves 5,920 as the loss of the above mentioned Confederate forces. This makes the contrast between the two tables still greater.

These figures emphasize the deadly fighting in that great battle, and they are more eloquent of the valor of American soldiers than words of song or oratory. They emphasize also the value of defensive breastworks, in comparison with fighting unprotected.

The Union troops expended 2,650,000 musket cartridges in hitting the 15,881 Confederate killed and wounded; some of them were, however, wounded by artillery. It appears as if it took about 150 infantry cartridges to hit one man. The expenditure was 650,000 more cartridges than at Stone’s River; but then 6,642 more of the Confederates were struck at Chickamauga, which shows that the firing was much more destructive.

General Rosecrans states:[30] “The fight on the left after 2 p. m., was that of the army. Never, in the history of this war at least have troops fought with greater energy and determination. Bayonet charges, often heard of but seldom seen, were repeatedly made by brigades and regiments in several of our divisions.”

At 2 p. m. on September 21, C. A. Dana, Assistant Secretary of War, sent a dispatch from Chattanooga to the Secretary of War. It contained the following statements: “Thomas, finding himself cut off from Rosecrans and the right, at once brought his seven divisions into position for independent fighting. Refusing both his right and left, his line assumed the form of a horse-shoe posted along the slope and crest of a partly wooded ridge. He was soon joined by Granger from Rossville, with the brigade of McCook and division of Steedman, and with these forces firmly maintained the fight till after dark. Our troops were as immovable as the rocks they stood on. The enemy hurled against them repeatedly the dense columns which had routed Davis and Sheridan in the morning, but every onset was repulsed with dreadful slaughter. Falling first on one and then another point of our lines, for hours the rebels vainly sought to break them. Thomas seemed to have filled every soldier with his own unconquerable firmness, and Granger, his hat torn by bullets, raged like a lion wherever the contest was hottest with the electrical courage of a Ney. * * * When night fell this body of heroes stood on the same ground they had occupied in the morning their spirit unbroken, but their numbers greatly diminished. * * * The divisions of Wood, Johnson, Brannan, Palmer, Reynolds, and Baird, which never broke at all, have lost very severely.”[31] He should have added that they inflicted greater loss upon the enemy than any of the other divisions. The discouraged spirit of the Confederate Army at the close of the battle was sufficiently apparent when the forces under Thomas’s command were able—after the arrival of General Gordon Granger’s troops—to stop the enemy’s further successes. It is evident that the fighting spirit was gone from Bragg’s army since, although they discovered the falling back, they did not approach Rossville Gap on the 21st with a considerable force, nor seriously interfere in the backward movement to Chattanooga, not even trying to capture a wagon, mule, or horse, although its great cavalry leader, Forrest and his troopers, were in force close to Rossville Gap. It was more paralyzed than the Union Army. General Daniel H. Hill, who commanded a Confederate corps on the right in the battle, states in the article referred to before: “There was no more splendid fighting in ’61, when the flower of the Southern youth was in the field, than was displayed in those bloody days of September, ’63. But it seems to me that the elan of the Southern soldier was never seen after Chickamauga—that brilliant dash which had distinguished him was gone forever. He was too intelligent not to know that the cutting in two of Georgia meant death to all his hopes. * * * He fought stoutly to the last, but, after Chickamauga, with the sullenness of despair and without the enthusiasm of hope. That ‘barren’ victory sealed the fate of the Southern Confederacy.”[32]

If the Army of the Cumberland accomplished so much at Chickamauga in spite of certain mistakes, after having penetrated to the centre of the Confederate territory, what might not have been done, if the right of the Union line had been properly placed and protected during the night of the 19th, and if the disastrous order to Wood had not been issued? The withdrawal of Wood from the line—just before Bushrod Johnson advanced against the centre—cost the Union fighting line 10,000 men, and caused the withdrawal, some hours later, of the Union Army to Rossville. Whether Wood interpreted that order correctly, the fact is that the order should never have been issued. The movement of closing in towards the left and of throwing the right further back, should have been done hours before. One of Mitchell’s cavalry divisions should have been placed on the Union left during the night of the 19th.

It must be conceded that Brannan’s division was the most active in the battle. It was well managed, but its loss in killed and wounded was greater than that of any other Union division. Brannan lost in killed and wounded 1,977, with 214 missing. His division fought bravely under his skillful management, yet he was unprotected on both days. Negley’s loss was 496 killed and wounded, the smallest loss of all. The following officers went through the battle with great credit, viz.: Generals Thomas, Granger, Steedman, Brannan, Baird, Johnson, Palmer, Reynolds; and Brigade-Commanders Hazen, Harker, Van Derveer, Croxton, Whittaker, John C. Mitchell, Willich, and Turchin.

If a real soldier, like Longstreet, had been in command of the Confederate right and had found upon advancing against the Union line, that two brigades lengths extended beyond the Union left, he would certainly have made more out of such a condition than did Breckenridge or Leonidas Polk.

General D. H. Hill, in his report[33] discusses the situation as follows: “The important results effected by two brigades on the flank proved that, had our army been moved under cover of the woods a mile farther to the right, the whole Yankee position would have been turned and an almost bloodless victory gained. A simple reconnoisance before the battle would have shown the practicability of the movement and the advantage to be gained by it.” Hill was in command on that flank and should have acted in accordance with his understanding of the situation, or at least reported the facts to his superior. This was what Rosecrans was anxious about when he hastened troops from the right to the left. If Sheridan could have reached Thomas before Longstreet cut him off in the act of double-quicking toward the left flank, what would have happened?

General Thomas’s dispositions to protect his left showed military genius of the highest order, and General Baird greatly assisted him in this matter. This was only one instance, however, of General Thomas’s many equally meritorious tactics in this great battle. He rose to the highest point in the estimation of both officers and men.

Both days’ fighting illustrates the fact that when troops are outflanked or attacked in the rear, however brave they may be in other positions relative to the enemy, they will as a rule go to pieces. It was repeatedly shown on both sides, especially on the 19th, during the battle, that the veteran troops as well as the new regiments, would become disheartened and confused in such a position; many of the regiments on the left during the second day, who did not flinch when attacked in flank and rear on the day before, then went to pieces.

The protected troops on the Union left fought through the entire day of the 20th, entirely unconscious that they were frequently surrounded not only in front and rear of their own line, but that the two flanks of the army were only about three-fourths of a mile apart, although in the morning they were two and a half miles apart. At noon the Union right was contracted, and thrown back against the left. The order to retreat late in evening of the 20th came as a surprise and shock to these troops, who had been repulsing the enemy all day with comparative ease. Thousands of musket bearers were so stiff and sore from the two days’ conflict and the marches over the mountains during the preceding days, that when a regiment lying down on the evening of the 20th attempted to rise there was a distinct creaking of bones and an accompanying groan, slight, but perceptible. Many of them while moving back to Rossville at night, took the desperate chance of lying down for a nap in the woods by the roadside, intending to rest for an hour or two and then join their regiments again before daylight; but hundreds of these awoke to find it was already daylight and many were captured by the enemy’s cavalry.

The Confederate Army itself did not advance from the battlefield until the 23rd; only a small part leaving on the 22nd. The fact is that the Confederate Army was much more used up than the Union Army; General Bragg said to General Longstreet on the 20th that his troops upon his right were used up.[34] The same Confederate troops which had penetrated the line and driven Davis, Sheridan, and others from the field, were so roughly handled by Brannan and Granger on Snodgrass Hill that they could not be brought forward for another attack. The slowness with which the Confederate Army moved to their positions around Chattanooga proves that they were practically defeated. At the time the orders were sent to the divisions behind the log works on the left to prepare for withdrawal, their commanders sent word back to General Thomas that there was no reason for them to retreat; they had been, and were at that moment repulsing easily every assault. They did not know of the disaster to the right, caused by Wood’s withdrawal, nor did General Baird and his brigade commanders know of the movements of either Union or Confederate forces until after the retreat. Many writers have expressed the opinion that the Union Army should not have retreated. But to a soldier who was present on the field and knew the facts—such as the absence of the commander of the army; his order sent from the far rear to fall back to Rossville; the absence of ammunition and rations; the utterly exhausted condition of the rank and file by the superhuman exertions of the two days’ fighting and the preceding hard marching; the fear that if the Union Army remained, the Confederate Army might yet wedge its way between it and Chattanooga, the Union commander not being aware at that time of the exhausted and discouraged condition of the Confederate Army—it seems that the falling back in the way and at the time it did was the correct thing. At least it seems as if Thomas had really nothing else to do than to fall back when the order from General Rosecrans was received. Had General Thomas been the commander of the army, it might have been different.

The Union cavalry did not properly cooperate with the other arms of the Union forces. Forrest, with his large Confederate cavalry force, was close to the right of the Confederate Army, and did fine service; the force was equal to the infantry in number. Forrest should have been opposed by a division of the Union cavalry. Only one cavalry brigade was needed at Crawfish Springs; the other cavalry brigade together with Wilder’s mounted infantry which closed up on the right of McCook, should have given better service at a time when it was most needed. This was not the fault of the cavalry commander, for he only obeyed orders from his superiors. In a dispatch to General R. B. Mitchell, the commander of the cavalry, at 7:15 p. m. September 20, General Rosecrans said, “Had you been on our right today you could have charged the enemy’s flank, and done much incalculable mischief.” Why was not his cavalry as close to the Union right flank as Forrest’s was to the Confederate right flank? Mitchell’s cavalry was too far away to be effective, when disaster overtook the wing: it was supposed to be protecting, but it was farther away from Snodgrass Hill on the right than were the forces of Gordon Granger, at McAffee’s church on the left.