On the Union side there were over a score of regiments in which the losses in this single fight exceeded 49.4 per cent. The " Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava," immortalized by Tennyson, did not suffer by ten per cent. as much as did thirty of the Union regiments at Chickamauga; and a number of Confederate regiments suffered even more than their Federal opponents. Longstreet's command in less than two hours lost nearly forty-four per cent. of its strength. Of the troops that received their splendid assaults, Steedman's and Brannan's commands lost respectively forty-nine and thirty-eight per cent. in less than four hours. The loss of single regiments showed a much heavier percentage. For instance, the Tenth Tennessee Regiment lost sixty-eight per cent.; the Fifth Georgia, 61.1; the Second Tennessee, 60.2; the Sixteenth Alabama, 58.6; a great number of them more than fifty per cent. The total Confederate losses were about 18,000 men; the total Federal losses, about 17,000. Viewed from the stand-point of both sides, Chickamauga was the fifth greatest battle of the war, being exceeded only by Gettysburg, Spottsylvania, the Wilderness, and Chancellorsville. But each of these battles were of a much longer time. The total Confederates engaged in the battle were 59,242; the total Federals, 60,867. The battle was fought on the 20th of September, 1863. The movements of both sides were too complex to be followed here. During a very hot part of the battle, General Hood, on the Confederate side, was fearfully wounded; General Benning, of his "Rock Brigade," lost his own horse, and thought that General Hood was killed and that everything was gone to smash. He cut a horse loose from a captured gun, grabbed a rope trace as a riding whip, mounted, and rode to meet General Longstreet and report. He had lost his hat in the mêlée, and everything was in terrible shape. He reported,— "General Hood killed, my horse killed, my brigade torn to pieces, and I haven't a single man left." General Longstreet smiled, and quietly asked him if he did not think he could find one man. Quieted by the tone of the question, he began to look for his men, found quite a number of them, and quickly joined the fighting forces at the front, where he discovered that the Confederates had carried the first line, that Johnson's division was in the breach and pushing on, with Hindman spreading battle to the enemy's limits, Stuart's division holding bravely on, and the brigades of Kershaw and Humphreys coming along to help restore the battle to good organization. About one o'clock in the day lunch was ordered spread for a number of the officers. General Longstreet meanwhile rode with General Buckner and the staffs to view the changed conditions of the battle. He could see but little of the enemy's line, and only knew it by the occasional exchange of fire between the skirmishers. Suddenly the party discovered that they had passed the Confederate line and were within the fire of the Federal sharp-shooters, who were concealed behind the trees and under the brush. They came back in more than doublequick. General Longstreet ordered General Buckner to establish a twelve-gun battery on the right and enfilade the Federal works. Then he rode away to enjoy a sumptuous spread of Nassau bacon and Georgia sweet potatoes. They were not accustomed to potatoes of any kind in Virginia, and the Georgia variety was a peculiar luxury. While the lunch was in its first stages a fragment of shell came tearing through the woods, passed through a book in the hands of a courier who sat his horse hard by reading, and struck down the chief of ordnance, Colonel T. P. Manning. Friends sprang forward to look for the wound and give relief. Manning had just taken an unusually large bite of sweet potato, and was about suffocating thereby. He was supposed to be gasping for his last breath when General Longstreet suggested that he be relieved of the potato and given a chance to breathe. This done, he soon revived, and was ready to be taken to the hospital, and in a few days he was again ready for either a Federal shell or a Georgia potato. The vicissitudes of the battle were many and varied, but finally the Federal forces quit the field and the different wings of the Confederate army came together and greeted each other with loud huzzas. The Army of the Tennessee was ready to celebrate its first grand victory, in spite of the great losses sustained. The twilight dews hung heavy over the trees, as if to hush the voice of victory in the presence of death, but nevertheless, the two lines, which neared as they advanced, united their shouts in increasing volume, not as the cannon's violent noise, but as one great burst of harmony that seemed almost to lift from their rooted depths the great forest trees. Before greetings and congratulations upon the success had passed it was night, and the mild beams of the quartering moon were more suggestive of Venus than of Mars, as Longstreet rested in the white light of the one great triumph of Confederate arms in the West. IN EAST TENNESSEE ABOUT the 1st of November, 1863, it was determined at Confederate head-quarters that Longstreet should be ordered into East Tennessee against General Burnside's army. On the 22d of October General Grant joined the army, and it was known that General Sherman was marching to join him. |