A FRIEND remarks that he is sorry I undertake to write on the battle of Chattanooga, because in his judgment the subject has already been thoroughly exhausted. I know that there are many accounts. I have read several of them, and, so far as my knowledge goes, they are well written and reasonably accurate; but as I was present myself, and took part in this battle, my experience may differ from that of others, and my manner of telling what I saw and heard may throw some additional light upon those important events that have already become the subject of controversy.
The lastnamed place was my position, looking defensively to the left and rear. There, on September 24, , without previous warning, the following mandatory summons reached my head-quarters: —. Devereux, superintendent of the road, Alexandria, at what points you desire to have the trains take up your troops, and the number at each place. You will not wait to be relieved by other troops, but proceed to Washington the moment the trains are ready to take your command.
Please acknowledge. The twelfth corps, under General H. Slocum, received a similar order. Of course, the general quiet was now broken. Cars were drawn from a distance and conveyed rapidly to our vicinity. The army wagons were used to haul the baggage to the different depots nearest at hand, and then left behind.
The artillery and horses were to be taken. Car after car and train after train was loaded with men, animals, and material, and moved forward, one train following another as closely as a regard for safety would allow. The movement was apparently for Washington, but this was not really our destination.
I did this at once. Hooker had been placed in command of the eleventh and twelfth corps. He informed me that these two corps were to be transferred to the neighborhood of the army of Rosecrans, then at Chattanooga. The battle of Chickamauga had just been fought, closing on the 21st, only four days before this conversation, by Rosecrans withdrawing his army from the battlefield into that curious place, Chattanooga,— afterwards so familiar to our people, — a sheltered nook lying against the concave bend of the Tennessee, and hemmed in by Lookout Mountain below and by Missionary Ridge above.
