Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/405

 Chickamauga. 399

recollection is that a demonstration was made near Lee & Gordon's mill while troops were being crossed further to the right.

The first fighting on our side in the battle of the 19th was by For- rest's cavalry, which was reinforced by Walker's division, and these two commands did all the fighting on our right until after midday. As Cheatham's division was moving rapidly to the right to support Walker, we passed by a large body of troops so much better dressed than any in our army, that there was a general inquiry as to what command they belonged to. We learned with surprise that this was a portion of Hood's division — Benning's brigade — and this was the first intimation we had of the arrival of reinforcements from Virginia.

When we arrived on the battle ground Walker had been driven back. Our division was thrown forward, rather on Walker's left, and attacked that portion of Thomas's corps which had overlapped Walker's left flank. Cheatham's men drove the enemy rapidly till it was found they held their ground behind a line of temporary breastworks of logs and rails. From this line our men would recoil, followed by fresh Federal troops, and so the tide of battle ebbed and flowed for quite awhile. Your correspondent correctly describes it as a desperate and stubborn fight. He is entirely wrong, however, in his account of a conflict between the troops of Cheatham and Sheridan. These two commands never fought face to face at all, Sheridan being further to our left, in front of Hood. From time to time during the fight we could tell when fresh troops were thrown against us by the way they opened fire, but our men met and repulsed each successive assault.

Your correspondent mentions that up to this point the divisions of Brannan, Baird, Johnson, Palmer, Van Cleve and Reynolds, were all sent forward, and "each in turn, although fighting stubbornly, was driven back by the force of the attack from masses of fresh troops," whereas, as a matter of fact, up to that time the only Confederate forces opposed to them had been Forrest's cavalry, and Walker's and Cheatham's divisions of veteran troops. Holding the field against such odds, our losses were necessarily very heavy, and as a specimen of the mortality, I will state that the loss in my own bat- tery, of four guns, was forty-nine horses killed, and forty-one men killed and wounded.

The superior number of Thomas's troops enabled them to overlap our front and attack us in flank, through a considerable interval be- tween our left and Hood's right, and Cheatham's division was finally forced to fail back, leaving on the field the guns of my own battery,