Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/189

 by the situation and the rules of the art of war, and substantially carried it out. He was favored by the accident of hitting our right just when most of it was out of position and in motion. But the strength of his assailing columns and vigor of their onset would doubtless have been too much for our wing if it had been in line. General Longstreet is, however, justly entitled to a share of the laurels. The début of Lee's tried corps commander upon this new theatre was certainly a brilliant one. It will be difficult, indeed, to find another instance on record of a general assuming command at midnight over entirely strange troops and successfully fighting a great action with them the very next day. Most singular was the final outcome of the battle of Chickamauga in that it proved fatal in its consequence to both the victorious and the vanquished commanders-in-chief.

According to the official lists, our casualties on the two days were 140 officers, including one brigadier-general (Lytle) and 1517 enlisted men killed, 609 officers and 9147 enlisted men wounded, and 248 officers and 4503 enlisted men captured, making a total loss of 16,164. The proportion of nearly one officer to every sixteen enlisted men is very large. On the Confederate side, a number of organizations appear to have failed to make returns, so that complete lists were never available. The closest estimates show a total rebel loss of nearly 18,000. As 2000 prisoners fell into our hands, the aggregate of their killed and wounded must have been almost equal to our total loss, and fully one-third larger than ours in killed and wounded. This was the natural result of the constant offensive of the enemy on both days. Three Confederate generals were killed and four wounded. There is a great discrepancy between the returns of the respective chiefs of ordnance as to the loss of artillery on our side. Rosecrans's chief admits the loss of only thirty-six pieces, while Bragg's claims fifty-two.

The battle of Chickamauga will live in memory as one