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CHICKAMAUGA: RIVER OF BLOOD Snodgrass Hill The first gun at Chickamauga The bloodiest two day battle of the war was fought at Chickamauga on September 19th and 20th, 1863. Approximately 35,000 of the 120,000 men deployed there became casualties in those two days. The First Day --- September 19, 1863 During the night preceding the battle both sides were shifting troops. "Neither army knew the exact position of the other....It is probable that division commanders on either side hardly knew where their own commands were, in the thick of the woods, let alone the other troops of their own arm, or the troops of the hostile army. The lines were at this time about six miles long." "The battle, fought in a densely wooded area which permitted little or no tactical control of units, was one of the bloodiest of the war." Rosecrans withdrew his army into the defenses of Chattanooga. Bragg followed, occupied Missionary Ridge and laid siege to the town. -from The Civil War Dictionary by Mark M. Bootner III Lookout Mountain from Chattanooga Winter Camp

NOVEMBER 23-27, 1863.--The Chattanooga-Ringgold Campaign.
Report of Lieut. Col. Porter C. Olson, Thirty-sixth Illinois Infantry.
HDQRS. THIRTY-SIXTH REGIMENT ILLINOIS VOLS.,

Chattanooga, Tenn., November 28, 1863.

At 1 o'clock on the morning of the 26th November, by order of Colonel Miller, the Thirty-sixth Illinois moved in pursuit of the enemy with the rest of the brigade upon the road toward Chickamauga Station. On the afternoon of the same day we returned with the brigade to Chattanooga.

Throughout the entire engagement the officers and men under my command behaved with the greatest gallantry and coolness. Though they have conducted themselves bravely and nobly on former fields, it seems to me that on this occasion the regiment has added a new and brighter luster to their already good name and well-earned laurels. I do not know that they exceeded the men of other regiments in this action, for all seemed to vie with one another in deeds of daring; but this I do believe, that their conduct for bravery and almost superhuman exertion has never been surpassed in any army. Their names will be held in remembrance by a grateful country.

Of the conduct of the enlisted men the facts stated in this report form a more brilliant compliment than any other that could be given. I must, however, mention the name of the flag bearer, Private William R. Fall, of Company C, for bravery. He can have no superior; he was among the first to reach the summit and wave the Stars and Stripes in the face of the enemy.

It is not for me to comment upon the conduct of my superiors, but I desire to state that the conduct of Colonel Miller, of this regiment, was especially conspicuous for gallantry; he rode along the line exposing himself with the most perfect coolness, directing, encouraging, and urging forward the exhausted men of whatever regiment he found. I make this statement as an acknowledgment of his assistance, not that anything I could say would add to his high reputation.

To this report I append a list of casualties.

Your obedient servant,

PORTER C. OLSON,
Lieutenant-Colonel Thirty-sixth Illinois Vols., Comdg. Regt.
Lieutenant NIEMAN,
Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

The following excerpts are from the book
MOUNTAINS TOUCHED WITH FIRE: Chattanooga Besieged, 1863
by Wiley Sword

A former Indian trading village once known as Ross Landing, Chattanooga had fallen on evil days by 1863. The town of Chattanooga "must have been a nice place in times of peace," observed an Illinois officer, who was thoroughly amazed at the large network of railroad switches and side tracks at the southern end of town. Huge depots, warehouses, and two foundries dominated the scene, reflecting Chattanooga's status as a burgeoning railroad and industrial site before the Civil War. It was the railroads that had changed the town's destiny. Due to their influence, Chattanooga had become popularly known as "the gateway to the South."

Wartime had brought a prolonged season of despair, noted the Reverend Dr. Thomas H. McCallie, the sole remaining local civilian minister following Chattanooga's September 9, 1863 occupation by the Federal army. "All without was winter. It was winter in the city and winter in the state. War had devastated everything," he sadly noted. His Presbyterian church on Market Street had been converted on September 21, 1863, into a hospital. Pews were torn out, cots installed, and hundreds of wounded Federals from the Chickamauga battlefield covered the floor. Confusion and chaos reigned in the city. Civil authority was suspended; stores and markets were closed. The town became white with a sea of tents, including a few sutler's shelters, which contained but little merchandise. There was barely enough food--no milk, no butter, no cheese, and hardly any fruit for the town's remaining populace. For sustenance, the citizens relied on bacon, bread, what salted meat and pickles they had preserved in barrels from earlier times, and a little coffee. Most families remained indoors. As the siege of Chattanooga progressed, an insidious despair had settled over the community."

With the approach of the Confederate army on September 22, various outlying residences had been burned due to military expediency. The Federal commanders wanted no place of refuge for enemy sharpshooters between the lines, or a restricted view of Rebel positions. As a result, the blackened chimneys of once-prosperous residences stood stark against a sky hazy with smoke, noted a Federal lieutenant on the morning after the burning. Everywhere there was the relentless turmoil of war...So many stately trees were downed that by 1865 only fifty-one shade trees remained standing in the city. Then, with the advent of cold winter weather, so desperate for fuel became the multitude of soldiers that servants' quarters, smokehouses, doors from residences, and even household furniture were taken." Chattanooga's wretched facade had become all-pervasive. The town was only a dingy military camp, with the rights of citizens humbled, regardless of wealth or social standing. Many remaining townspeople were ordered to leave the city. Go north or go south, they were told, but leave Chattanooga.

For good reason, many had already left in despair. A Yankee enlisted man was amazed to discover in one house the families only calf and a disassembled board fence piled inside the parlor to protect them from pillage. "There is not a pig running loose inside our lines," he joked. Chattanooga was devoid of commercial activity, especially since most inhabitants were required to stay in their homes. A few managed to work for the Federal army, being paid in food, which was "the way the Rebels get their rights," decreed an unsympathetic soldier. Shrugging off all the manifest misery and squalor, Pvt. Bliss Morse of the 105th Ohio mused, "I supposed it [Chattanooga] looks no worse than many other Southern towns our army has been in."

All of this agony and ordeal had been presaged, some said, by the meteor episode of 1860. Amid the presidential campaign of that summer and fall, various political speakers, including Stephen A. Douglas, had visited Chattanooga to address the citizens. During one of the frequent political speeches of that year, a meteor had streaked across the sky, breaking into two parts. Word soon spread that it was of ominous portent; the country would split into two halves. Chattanooga thereafter had suffered much. And now there was only more misery in the offing.

...Many of Rosecran's men seemed sanguine and hopeful despite the recent debacle at Chickamauga. "Our army is all together again and in good order. Let them come on and God grant us the victory," wrote twenty-one year old Chesley Mosman, a lieutenant in the 59th Illinois Infantry Regiment. The random fighting along the front lines soon degenerated into scattered sniper firing, and aside from patrols or a few probing reconnaissances by small units, there were only occasional blasts of cannon fire to shatter the gathering quiet. Once the initial concerns about a Rebel attack had abated, the men began to regard their circumstances and the results of the past few weeks in a different light. "We do not feel exactly whipped," announced a Federal soldier to his family on October 2. "neither do [we] feel we gained nothing. For we should have had a fight anyway to get this place. We have it to their sorrow. It is so much gained. I hope we can hold it. Let the reinforcements come."

...The attitude of well being was soon revealed as so much false euphoria following a narrow escape from disaster. There were so many difficulties burdening the Federal army at Chattanooga that concern about a direct enemy attack was among the least worrisome. In fact, as the days and weeks progressed, it was the soul of the Federal army that was in doubt. The men and their leaders were to be tested psychologically to the fullest extreme. Instead of the prospect of facing an attack from behind well-prepared entrenchments, it was soon manifest that the bloodied and beaten Army of the Cumberland must attack the surrounding heights in order to survive.

...By mutual agreement, during the several days' journey of the ambulance train, the pickets on both sides were ordered not to fire at one another. The importance of this truce as a subtle opportunity for the soldiers to chat and interact with their opponents was soon realized by troops in both armies. All along the lines, there were frank and practical discussions among both armies' rank and file. On the twenty-seventh, a Federal officer wrote how he was able to take a bath in Chattanooga Creek, within plain sight of a Rebel picket. "As he was so amiable, I went out to talk to him," wrote Lt. Chesley Mosman in his journal. "He didn't feel elated over the battle and says, "we didn't whip you fellows much." "One of Longstreet's men, the enemy picket acknowledged that they had found a big difference between eastern and western Yankees.

Matters soon went beyond sociability. Some of the troops agreed that as an extension of the existing ambulance truce there would be no further shooting along the picket lines unless the other side made a general advance. This arrangement spread along the front lines until a general "understanding" prevailed. A Regular officer, a lieutenant in the 18th US Infantry, described with amazement in a letter home the remarkable change that had occurred. "When we first took our position here after the battle [of Chickamauga] the pickets would have to lay down and keep under cover...for if he stuck his head up...a bullet would be sent after him." Since the lines were in places only about one hundred yards apart, under the new no-shooting arrangement, "They exchange papers, and even go down between the lines and have a social talk," he observed. To Lieutenant Mosman, the informal truce was appropriate. It "seems wrong to murder a fellow for not doing anything offensive," he acknowledged. "Instead of shooting at them we talk to them and ask them to come over to our side of the creek for a chat and a game of euchre."

With the idle pickets in full view of one another on the evening of September 29, the returning ambulance train of about two hundred wagons loaded with 1,742 Federal wounded rumbled through the lines to the tune of bands playing at Fort Negley. Chesley Mosman found pickets from the 6th South Carolina Infantry in his front. To his surprise, they were " a fine, handsome, stout lot of fellows, better dressed than we are, their uniforms being apparently new." With soldiers from both armies filling their canteens from the same creek, a lively trade in tobacco for coffee and the exchange of newspapers was in progress. When Lieutenant Mosman found several privates from the 74th Illinois playing cards with the Johnnies, he recorded in his journal: "Ain't that a queer kind of war?" Another soldier, a member of the 85th Illinois, discussed the general situation with a nearby Confederate picket. "Say boys," said the Rebel, "this is all a damned piece of foolishness. Let's all quit and go home." The Yank benevolently agreed in principal, admitting that there was "some truth to that." As a Confederate captain noted, "If the terms of peace had been left to the men who faced each other in battle day after day, they would have stopped the war at once on terms acceptable to both sides." A particularly thoughtful Federal soldier acknowledged in a letter home: "One of the boys in my company was out and talked with them [Rebels], he traded his pipe and pocket knife to them for tobacco. It is strange that they will talk to one another one moment and maybe the next they may be in deadly conflict with each other. As for my part, I begin to think it is time for this thing [war] to stop. We have seen enough of men butchered."

There was no truce among artillerists. The guns continued to roar during the ever-shortening Autumn days, until an hour-long sporadic cannonading was considered commonplace. It was a constant reminder of the "realities of our circumstances," remembered a Federal soldier. Beginning on September 25, when heavy cannon began firing from Lookout Mountain, the long-range bombardment of Chattanooga had been a regular occurrence. Although at first a source of dread, lumbering shells were randomly dispersed and inaccurate. For example, the October 5 bombardment had caused only a single injury, it was learned: that of a private in the Fourteenth Corps who was struck in the leg. After estimating that the Rebel guns were about two miles distant, one rather indifferent Ohio infantryman remarked in a letter home: "It would not seem very pleasant to any to any of you, I dare say, to have your sleep broken by cannonading [at] any hour during the night. Yet we have this music every night, and snooze away--perhaps asking the question: '[Do you] think that was our gun or the Rebs?"

To the battle-hardened Federal veterans who had faced many devastating close-range artillery blasts, the enemy's ineffective long-range practice, even if from commanding heights, was soon regarded as a minor annoyance." "[The Rebels] have wasted a great deal of ammunition," wrote Capt. John S.H. Doty of the 104th Illinois Infantry, "for they have fired from here, and I don't think they kill a man once in a month." Doty dismissed the danger, saying, "It seems that their shelling from that mountain does not amount to much, or has not so far." Another unimpressed officer agreed, scoffing that the "shells don't do [us] much harm." To a youthful Federal lieutenant, the Confederate cannon on Lookout Mountain were so notoriously inaccurate that he joked in a letter home about the scene witnessed on October 10. The men were all in line to answer roll call about noon when a shell from Lookout Mountain struck in the center of the 18th US Infantry's camp. "It was a percussion shell, and struck on a rock and exploded beautifully" near Gen. Lovell H. Rousseau, noted the lieutenant, "The next shell passed ...over General Rousseau's house and struck right in front of the door of General King's house, [only[ about four feet behind a man who was carrying water. As the shell struck the ground he fell water and all, [then] kicked with his legs to see if he was still alive." The man hastily got up and walked away to the laughter of all."

When several shells fell in the camp of the 2nd Minnesota Infantry, a sergeant saw Gen. George H. Thomas standing on the wall of a nearby fort, looking nonchalantly at the scene. A few men were seen running as several shells passed overhead, causing the men of the 59th Illinois Infantry to have a good laugh. Instead of the supposed safety in scurrying away at the sound of an incoming shell, one soldier mused, "Motion is as likely to carry one into as [well] as out of its way." One wildly bounding solid shot, striking the ground in front of a campfire, knocked a frying pan out of a soldier's hand, then careened into a stump behind which another man was sitting. "The shell was hardly cool when the boys had it on exhibition, passing it from hand to hand," wrote an amazed onlooker.

Fortunately for the soldiers' peace of mind, there were other, far more agreeable sounds emanating from around Chattanooga during the siege. One Federal private was almost homesick from listening to the sound of band music wafting across the valley on a balmy evening. Both armies contained various regimental bands, and the strains of favorite songs such as "Yankee Doodle", "The Battle Cry of Freedom," and "The Bonnie Blue Flag" entertained soldiers on both sides.

Play THE BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM

Yes, we'll rally 'round the flag, boys,
We'll rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom,
We will rally from the hillside,
We'll gather from the plain,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.

CHORUS: The Union forever,
Hurrah! boys, hurrah!
Down with the traitors,
Up with the stars;
While we rally 'round the flag, boys,
Rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.
We are springing to the call
Of our brothers gone before,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom;
And we'll fill our vacant ranks with
A million free men more,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.

It was a strange scene one Sunday, noted another soldier, with his regiment's brass band tooting away at the head of a funeral procession for a dead comrade while the big guns at Fort Wood were shelling the enemy's lines. The solemn procession passed by another part of camp almost unnoticed, where the soldiers were intently gathered together playing Chuck-a-luck. "You can't stop them from gambling," remarked an officer. Yet, as he witnessed, the good nature of most was reflected at night, when " the boys fell to singing, and it spread from company to company, and regiment to regiment....The Johnnies must have thought we were holding a camp meeting," he joked.

The rain began on the afternoon of September 30. At first it was very light, and barely noticeable. Most of morning had been dark, and to an Illinois soldier, the event represented much of "a miracle...a curious day, everything taken into consideration." This rain, the first in nearly two months of campaigning, had everyone abuzz. The drizzle that began about 3:00 pm was by evening a steady, pattering rain that continued into the night. On October 1, the men of both armies awoke to a downpour. "It was coming down in torrents." discovered a Federal officer who found himself "soaking wet from the hips down...Strange how a fellow can sleep with the rain falling on him until he is wet through before he realizes his situation." To those who at first welcomed the end to the drought, there soon were unwelcome consequences. The trenches in the front lines came to be "very mean and uncomfortable." Much of the day, wrote another soldier, was spent with extreme difficulty in attempting to "banish the water from our dog tents."

This was only the beginning. Instead of the familiar rising cloud of choking dust at every step, within weeks both armies were foundering in a sea of mud. The rains of October and November 1863 proved to be some of the most relentless and devastating in recent memory. From October 1 to November 23, a period of fifty-three days, it rained during nineteen days, with many heavy thunderstorms and prolonged downpours, especially during a two-week period in October. For the men within the Chattanooga fortifications, it was the onset of misery beyond their wildest imaginings, for with the rain came cold weather.

One disgruntled Ohioan found that after a hard frost, the ground was so cold that he could not lie down to sleep. Instead, "I sit up by the fire," he wrote to his mother. "Better believe [me], they are long nights, and we look rather anxiously for old Sol [in the morning]." During the daylight hours, the ample mixture of water and mud had everyone foundering about in ankle-deep glop. To add to the difficulty, the constant tramping about of thousands of men so kneaded the campgrounds and roads, it seemed impossible at times to move about in the heavy mire."

With the coming of the hard frosts and wintry mountain blasts of frigid air, so many trees were being cut down for firewood, the supply was quickly exhausted. "We have to go quite a distance for wood [and now] cut the brush for fire [wood], complained an Ohio soldier. "There were many hundreds acres of timber within our lines, but [they] are now cut away," he lamented. "Fuel is scarce," grumbled another besieged veteran on October 9. "Orders [are] received not to burn railroad ties." Yet there was a beneficial effect...To Pvt. J.A. Reep "The exertion warmed the body...and [the resulting fire] warmed...food and fingers." These are "gloomy times," mused a discouraged Illinois infantryman. The incessant rains had created shortages of everything, he complained, except a full ration of rheumatism from lying on the cold ground. "Rain, rain!! rain!!!" he scrawled in his diary. "This is...an awful time." Little did he know that the worst was yet to come.

During the first few days following Chickamauga, the soldiers of the Army of the Cumberland had paid little attention to the imminent shortage of food. Anticipation of an enemy attack kept most focused on building fortifications and preparing for battle. An officer noted rather indifferently on September 24 that a work detail, sent out to construct breastworks, had labored "a day and a half, and all night, without rations." The true situation began to become evident once quartermaster's details were sent to Chattanooga to obtain supplies. By September 27, many of the men were on reduced rations. One Illinois lieutenant angrily recorded in his journal: "Our men are entirely out of rations and can't get anything to eat. Seventy thousand rations are said to have been issued from our [wagon] trains and we can't get any, while the center divisions have plenty." The following day, with the men "in very bad humor," the officers divided their rations with the "swearing mad" soldiers. Illinois artillerymen James E. Withrow wrote in his journal on September 27: "Great destitution of feed for our horses and half rations of everything but bread for man. Only a very few corn stalks, no corn, for our animals." The next day, Withrow noted: "we now draw only half rations of anything."

The devastating, abrupt decline in available food was duly noted by Pvt. Bliss Moore of the 105th Ohio Infantry. Moore recorded the reduced bill of fare in his daily diary: "October 9th--We got some pork and [a] cracker for breakfast. For dinner beans and [a] cracker. Supper[;] crackers and coffee, no meat. Our rations are scant. Boys grumble much." When general orders from Rosecrans put the army on two-thirds rations, an Illinois soldier sarcastically joked, "[I] wonder if he didn't know we have been on one-half rations for ten days." "This is starvation camp," observed an Ohio sergeant who bribed a teamster, paying him ten cents to look the other way while he stole an ear of corn from his mules. "I ate it raw [but] I wasn't proud," he remembered.

Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Mieg's indictment was strong and direct... "Horses are dying for want of forage. Many are turned out on the north bottom to shift for themselves. It is more important to send forage than troops here now. This army, unless things improve, will be anchored for want of stout artillery and ammunition horses soon. A great oversight was not sending to Bridgeport grain in abundance as soon as the army retired to this place. Get it forward now."

On October 12, Rosecrans telegraphed Abraham Lincoln that the Rebels no longer were the chief worry at Chattanooga; "our danger is subsistence," he announced. Due to the lack of food and supplies, he couldn't bring up Hooker's troops, which would only increase the burden. Furthermore, Hooker's units were without most of their supply wagons and transportation, left behind in the East due to their urgent troop movement. To make matters psychologically worse, enemy-occupied Lookout Valley was said to be "full of corn", which Rosecrans couldn't reach, having evacuated Lookout Mountain. "We must put our trust in God, who never fails those who truly trust," he advised the President.

"The death of Lincoln was a disaster for Christendom. There was no man in the United States great enough to wear his boots and the bankers went anew to grab the riches. I fear that foreign bankers with their craftiness and tortuous tricks will entirely control the exuberant riches of America and use it to systematically corrupt modern civilization."

- Otto von Bismarck, German Chancellor (1815-1898)