Capt. David Embree, a Veteran of Numerous Battles, Reflects in a Letter to His Sister, Rose, on the Horror—and Exhilaration—of Combat
On September 9, 1863, General William “Old Rosy” Rosecrans, head of the Union Army of the Cumberland, captured Chattanooga, Tennessee, without a single loss of life. Imbued with confidence, Rosecrans ordered his troops to pursue Gen. Braxton Bragg and his Army of Tennessee into Georgia. The Rebel and Union forces—125,000 soldiers in all—descended on one another near Chickamauga Creek on September 19 and 20. Bragg lost more men, but “won” by driving Rosecrans back to Chattanooga. Combined, the two sides suffered more than 35,000 casualties in less than forty-eight hours. Capt. David Embree, a young attorney from Indiana who fought at Chickamauga, had received a letter beforehand from his fourteen-year-old sister Rose asking what it was like to be in a battle. Embree replied with the following. (“Bleucher,” alluded to in the letter, was Prussia’s Gebhard von Blücher, whose timely arrival helped the British defeat Napoleon at Waterloo. Louisa is Embree’s other sister.)
Dear Sister
Yours of the 16th ultimo came to hand after about two weeks traveling. It with one from Perry at the same time is the only letters I have got from home since the Battle here. I have not seen Jim since Pa was here, at that time spent one day in the 38th. He was in our camp about a week ago, but at the time I was out on a foraging expedition. We are camped north west of town and their camp is rather east of town. We are perhaps nearly three miles apart. I intend to visit their camp in a day or two when it is not too cold as it is now.
You ask me something about how one feels when in the hottest of a battle.
Well I believe I can tell you. There is no man, however brave he may be, who does not when the storm begins to rage fiercest around him;
when he sees a friend on the right and another on the left, stricken down and quivering in the agonies of death;
when he sees the serried ranks of his foe coming upon him undaunted and pouring their deadly fire out toward him, making the air quiver and hiss with the rapid movement of all manner of projectiles, from the keen sound of the little bullet that sings on its errand of destruction like the buzzing of a fly, to the bomb shell that goes by you like a thunder bolt, overcoming all obstacles;
I say there is no man who when the first wave of such battle as this surges upon him, does not involuntarily and mentally appeal to God for protection.
But after the man soon begins to fire at his foe, this animates him. He will soon in the earnestness of his purpose seem to forget that there is danger. His heart throbs wildly, the life blood hurries like a race horse through his veins, and every nerve is fully excited. The arm of the weak man becomes endued with almost a giant’s strength. His brain is all alive; thought is quick, and active, and he is ten times more full of life than before.
Although his reason may assent to the simple statement that he might be killed in an instant, yet his feelings seem to give the lie to it. He seems so full of life that it is hard for him to realize that death is so near. And then again as the waves of battle roll on and as he finds that perhaps the foe are gaining on him a feeling of despondency comes over him and he asks himself if the terrible waste of life he sees shall indeed prove fruitless.
He watches the time to see what he can hope for. If the foe are driving back his lines he longs for night to close the combat. Like a great warrior he exclaims “Would to God, that night or Bleucher, one would come!”
It is terrible to hear the singing of a bullet and follow its course as it flies on its way and then to hear that keen whistle of the little piece of lead suddenly terminate in a dull crush, as the ball leaps through the brain of some friend beside you. I noticed one case particularly like this. The ball came obliquely from the left and front and passed several feet in front of me. It seemed that I could hear it singing almost from the time it left its bed in the rebel’s gun, and as it swiftly came I knew where it was going, by the sound.
Suddenly I heard the same ball go crash! against something and I knew by the sound that it had burst a human skull. I barely had time to look around a few minutes to my right and then I saw Sergt. Chauncy Goldsmith quivering and dying. This happened when we were not very hotly engaged and when our men were not firing else I could not have heard the singing of the bullet. We were all kneeling in among some bush, and every one of us could not refrain from casting a glance at the dying man who lay there trembling in every limb and the blood spirting from his nostrils and the wound in his forehead. In the heat of action such scenes do not much affect one but at a time like this it is awful indeed.
On the night of the 31 as I passed over a part of the field to visit the 38th I could see by moonlight the poor dead men with their faces upturned and cold eyes gleaming in the moonlight. Then one could think of Sir John Moore’s burial, especially where the words come in “and we bitterly thought of the morrow,” for “on the morrow” I expected to see a much more terrible battle fought.
I have come to the conclusion that Shakespeare is right when he says “There’s a destiny that shapes our ends rough hew them how we may.” And that Destiny is Deity that shields and protects, or permits to be stricken down, as his wisdom chooses.
Tell Louisa I will write to her shortly. Give my love to all
Your Brother
After Rosecrans’s men were pressed back to and besieged at Chattanooga, President Lincoln sent Ulysses S. Grant to the rescue and replaced Rosecrans with George Thomas, who had saved Union forces from a total rout at Chickamauga. On November 24, the reinvigorated troops wasted little time trouncing the left flank of Bragg’s Rebels at Lookout Mountain, just outside of Chattanooga. Yelling “Chickamauga! Chickamauga!” the Union soldiers charged into Bragg’s main line at Missionary Ridge and sent them scurrying. President Lincoln was elated; he had finally found the general with the talent, steel will, and daring required to lead the entire Union army. Rumors of Grant’s drinking were immaterial to the president: “Can you tell me where he gets his whiskey?” Lincoln is reported to have said, “I should like to send a barrel of the same brand to every general in the field.”