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

-Battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge.
his army had been seriously reduced, and
Grant and Sherman were keeping him so
busy at that time, on his right and center,
that he could not possibly send any reinforcements from other parts of his line.
Not only was our number merely one-fifth
of Hooker's, but we had no intrenchments
or earthworks whatever on our part of the
line, not even any rifle-pits. Federal official
reports referring to this part of the battle,
speak of taking two lines of "barricades."
These were hastily constructed of small
stones placed in rows and a few logs laid on
top of them, and these "barricades" were
not made by us, but by General Rosecrans's
men, when they fell back from Chickamauga, two Mionths before; and though a few
men of our brigade were able to fight behind
them, they afforded very little protection for
us, for they extended up and down the ridge
to defend the crest against an advance from
the east -and could have served to defend
it towards the west; but Hooker's advance
was from the southwest, against the end of
the ridge, and not up its sides, as was the
assault on the right and center of Bragg's
line on Missionary Ridge. It follows that
Hooker's advance completely flanked these
slight barricades, and they were entirely useless to our brigade in our efforts to repel his
flank movement. As will be seen, then, our
part of the battle on Bragg's left, soon to be
described, was very different from the conflict on the rest of his line on November
25th; for it was a free fight in the open
woods, without defensive works and without
a battery, or even a single cannon, and without the slightest warning from any of our
superior officers of what we were to expect,
or to brace ourselves for-a pitched battle,
in fact, between the short line of one brigade, and three of the largest and best divisions of the Federal army. With these explanations, the results now to be told will
not seem strange.
Mention has just been made of the absence of any form of warning to our men on
the eve of this battle, which was destined to
prove so disastrous to the Confederate cause.
It was worthy of notice in Bragg's series of
signal defeats around Chattanooga, and is
worthy of record here, that not a single general order was issued to his army preparatory
to these battles; not a word of explanation,
not a word of encouragement, not a word
tending to "''enthuse" or strengthen an army.
Before Chickamauga, Bragg issued such an
order, and it certainly had a very fine effect
in inspiriting his men. It always seemed to
us as if General Bragg was totally unprepared for the masterly stroke of the Federal
generals there in all these spirited assaults
as if they came unexpectedly to him, and he
was completely surprised and stunned by
each heavy blow.
To form a correct idea of the battle of
Missionary Ridge, or Mission Ridge, as it is
called in Federal authorities, we must remember not only that it was an entirely distinct
engagement from the Battle of Lookout
Mountain, and fought the following daythough the two are confounded in some of
our leading histories in their descriptions
and engravings-but that the Union forces
made three distinct attacks in that battle on
different parts of Bragg's line, which was six
miles long, and all these attacks were in the
afternoon, the morning being occupied by
Grant's army in securing positions for attack.
Sherman, on the Federal left, opened an artillery fire during the morning on Bragg's
right, and between one and two in the afternoon he made.two efforts to advance his
line, but both charges were repulsed by Hardee's and Buckner's men, with an admitted
loss to the assaulting columns of seven hundred killed and wounded. Next came the
charge of Hooker's corps on Clayton's brigade of Alabamians, forming Bragg's left, near
Rossville, between two and three o'clock.
Then followed the charge of the Federal center under Granger, with Sheridan in the
lead, up the western slopes and to the crest
of Missionary Ridge, at a quarter to four.
This ended that truly terrific struggle, with
the whole Federal force in hot pursuit of
Bragg's routed army, in the short interval
between sunset and dark.
Leaving to other pens any details of the
fighting along Bragg's right and center, I
148
[Aug.