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

Battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge.
Mobile, and since dead, gallantly directing
and assisting in this effort to check the Federal advance. The official reports then state:
"The Ninth and Thirty-sixth Indiana regiments sprang forward, ran into line under
fire, and instantly charging drove back the
rebels, while the residue of the column formed their lines. Gross's Brigade, with the
Fifty-first Ohio, and Thirty-fifth Indiana of
Whitaker's Brigade in advance, then moved
forward, and the top of the ridge was found
to be so narrow, that the division (Cruft's)
was thrown into four lines.
The divisions of Geary and Osterhaus now
kept abreast. Whenever our short Confederate line made a stand, Geary and Osterhaus's divisions advanced and poured in a
withering fire from the west and east, while
Cruft's division was making its direct attack
from the south. Our line, having been rapidly formed in its second position, so as to
face south to meet the main attack, this new
line, being formed under fire, and necessarily in some confusion, was, in the way described, steadily forced back from point to
point. According to Federal official reports,
this fighting "continued until near sunset."
Meanwhile, General Breckenridge, who
had gone towards his head-quarters, after
seeing our skirmishers properlydeployed and
advancing, seemed to ascertain how large the
attacking force was, and to realize how hopeless was our contest against such odds.
In the thickest of the fight, seeing that our
brigade in this unequal contest would soon
be surrounded and captured, to a man, he
dashed up to our line of battle on his fine,
dark bay horse, at a moment when the Federal advance was slightly checked. He
called out:
"Who is in command of this line?"
Being referred to Col. L. T. Woodruff, of
the Thirty-sixth Alabama (from Mobile), the
ranking officer present, he gave him the
brief command, "Bring out your men at
once, and follow me."
The survivors of the brigade who were
not already prisoners, rapidly followed General Breckenridge and Colonel Woodruff
northward along the ridge and then down
its eastern slope, the Federal forces pressing
forward and closing in on their right and
left, until their line was like a horse-shoe.
The few hundreds of our brigade who were
able to escape by passing out of the narrow
opening, left just in time. Had General
Breckenridge delayed his timely order for
retreat but a few moments, Clayton's entire
brigade would have been captured, and probably General Breckenridge, our corps commander at that time, would have shared our
fate. As it was, with a loss to the brigade
of between four hundred and five hundred
killed and wounded, as well as we have ever
been able to learn, and at least two thousand
prisoners (General Hooker claims upwards of
two thousand), only about six hundred men
answered at brigade roll call next morning.
This was in their bivouac, some six miles
from the battle field, and just south of the
bridge over Chickamauga River, which was
crossed by a large part of Bragg's routed
army during the night of the 25th. Out of
some seventy men in Company C, and my
own Company (H) of the Thirty-sixth Alabama, who went into the fight, only seventeen were left to answer at roll-call next morning, and they, like many other companies,
were then consolidated, as but few officers
escaped from that disastrous field.
The writer of this sketch does not give
these closing facts of the retreat as an eyewitness; I learned them long afterwards
from fellow-officers who came out of the battle safely. It fell to my share to be left disabled on Missionary Ridge-in our second
line of battle, and near where the fight began-by a minie-ball in the right hip.
Who can paint the horrors of lying helpless from a wound, and on an exposed spot,
under a heavy cross-fire from foe and friend
for fifteen minutes or more? Or who can
realize the feeling of gloom, when thus face
to face with death, a desperately wounded
soldier first recognizes the fact that, far from
his loved ones, and they in uncertainty, he
is a prisoner, as he learns by the steady
tramp of the conquering foe, when they
march, line after line, in serried ranks, till
four lines of battle have passed where he and
150
[Aug.