Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/164

 officers to fall back to the passes of Lookout Mountain. He then retreated unmolested to the Chattanooga Valley, bringing off with him a large number of stragglers, many ammunition wagons, caissons, ambulances, and stray beef cattle. The record of the brigade is worth mentioning as that of almost the only unit of our army fighting by itself and coming off successfully.

The impetus of victory had carried the rebels in the wake of the fugitive Federals up and down and again up the group of hills intervening between the Lafayette and Chattanooga and the Crawfish Springs and Chattanooga roads. They gathered up many spoils on the way — guns, caissons, small arms, piles of knapsacks and tents. With Bushrod Johnson's division still in the lead, they reached the crest commanding the gap through which the last-mentioned road passes into the valley of Chattanooga Creek, and in which they discovered some of our retreating trains. They managed to send some shot and shell among the wagons, producing a panic among the drivers, who abandoned their charge to save themselves. Some more guns moving with the trains also fell into their hands. By thus pushing vigorously after our shattered troops, Johnson made it impossible to rally any of Davis's men before they reached McFarland's Gap and Farm on the Crawfish Springs road, between two and three miles from Rossville. He also prevented Sheridan from rejoining Thomas, as he had planned, and compelled him to march nearly five miles down to Rossville, whence he marched south for four miles over the Lafayette road, but did not reach the front again. Davis succeeded in collecting at McFarland' between twenty-five hundred and three thousand of his own command and of Wood's and Van Cleve's men, whom he led back late in the afternoon by the crossroad towards the battle-front. On arriving near it, he was ordered to fall back to Rossville.

The dispersal of our right had another momentous con sequence. The Commander-in-chief found himself