Battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge [pp. 138-152]

Battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge.
and when they rolled off, like the curtain of
a stage, the desperate drama was fully revealed to us. There was the line of attack,
swaying to and fro, half a mile or more in
length. All along both lines were puffs of
smoke, blown swiftly away by the mountain
breezes, and mingled with the surging, lowlying clouds. Soon we saw flags waving
along our line of works, and it must be confessed that when, by aid of our glasses, we
recognized that they were the "Stars and
Stripes," we could scarcely believe our eyes,
and our hearts sank within us. For we had
been led to believe that our position on
Lookout was impregnable against all direct
assaults. But now, under cover of a treacherous fog, it had been carried by storm, and the
day was evidently won for the Union arms.
As became known afterwards, our loss by this
unexpected assault was between 300 and
400 killed and wounded, and about I,ooo
prisoners, Hooker's loss in killed and wounded being less than ours.
Its immediate result was to force back
Bragg's extreme left more than a mile. The
Federal advance was checked by part of
Pettus's brigade of Alabamians, which was
moved rapidly from its position two miles
distant, and posted on a rocky spur jutting
out eastward from the palisades that form
the summit of Lookout.
Late in the afternoon all was astir on our
portion of the line, as orders were received
to be ready to march at a moment's notice.
About sunset our brigade was marched by
the Watkins Cross Road over Chattanooga
Creek, where we were exposed to shelling
from Moccasin Point, and several of our men
were killed and wounded; and soon afterwards we relieved Pettus's brigade in its
rocky position. At this dismal, dreary post,
we exchanged a desultory fire with the Federal advance till ten o'clock or later; and
held it till after midnight. Our men who
remained in the valley told us next day that
this battle scene at night was deeply impressive, the two lines of battle, extending up
and down the mountain side, being marked
by the incessant flash of rifles till nearly midnight, like thousands of "lightning-bugs" on
a midsummer night in our southern woods.
After the firing ceased, those of us who could
do so snatched a few moments of troubled
sleep -on our rocky perch.
Between two and three A. M., an order
came to withdraw from our position as quietly as possible, and we followed our guide,
drawing our slow length along, we knew not
where. In the small hours of that frosty November morning, the full moon was shining
brightly. It was in eclipse soon after three
A. M., when our pickets, under Captain Carpenter, of the 36th Alabama, withdrew silently from their rocky osts in the thick woods,
just before daybreak. Never can I forget the
ghastly sight presented by some of our dead,
as they lay along our pathway, ready for a
soldier's hasty burial, with their blanched
faces, and glaring though sightless eyes, upturned in the full moonlight. What a picture
there, in that solitary mountain forest, of utter loneliness and desolation!
The eclipse that night naturally set us to
thinking that matters began to look as if
Bragg's great success over Rosecrans, at
Chickamauga, was about to be eclipsed by
the exploits of Grant and Sherman around
Chattanooga. And such, indeed, was to be
the case, but none for a moment anticipated
the crushing disaster in store for Bragg's
army that day.
We soon found ourselves approaching our
old camp at the Watkins house, and there
about sunrise we were halted, only long
enough, without even breaking ranks, to fill
our haversacks with several days' rations,
prepared by our cooks the night before. We
at once took up our line of march towards
Missionary Ridge, and learned that all of
Bragg's center and left wing were moving in
the same direction. Our brigade gained the
top of the ridge by a wagon road of easy
grade, a half mile or so northeast of Rossville-a road that still exists much as it was
in war times, as I found by riding down it
last August from the Brundage place, a farm
which includes our part of the old battlefield. When we reached the summit, we
filed to the right, passing near the house that
was occupied throughout the day as Breck
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