Major James A. Connolly of the 123rd Illinois Infantry had fought at Chickamauga, where his brigade, led by Colonel John T. Wilder, had covered the retreat of the Union right wing. Connolly was then assigned to the staff of Brigadier General Absalom Baird, a division commander in the Fourteenth Corps of the Army of the Cumberland. The battle of Chattanooga cost the Union about 5,800 men killed, wounded, or missing, and the Confederates more than 6,600. While Bragg retreated to Dalton, Georgia, twenty-five miles southeast of Chattanooga, Grant sent Sherman to relieve Burnside at Knoxville. As Sherman approached on December 4, Longstreet abandoned his siege and retreated to the east. By then Bragg had resigned as commander of the Army of Tennessee.
Chattanooga, Thursday, Nov. 26, 1863.
Dear wife:
I have just come down off Mission Ridge, up which we fought our way yesterday afternoon. My horse carried me up there without a girth to my saddle, but I can’t tell how. We captured quite a good sized army in the way of prisoners and artillery. Right in front of our Division as we climbed the mountain, were massed 42 pieces of artillery, belching away at us, but they couldn’t even scare us, as they couldn’t depress their guns to reach us, but had to blaze away far over our heads. We captured all these guns. One of the first officers I saw at these guns was old Quartermaster General Meigs, wild with excitement, trying himself, to wheel one of these guns on the rebels, flying down the opposite side of the mountain and furious because he couldn’t find a lanyard with which to fire the gun.
Our advance to the base of the Ridge was the grandest sight I ever saw. Our line stretched along the valley for miles, in the open field, in plain view of the rebels on the mountain top, and at a given signal all moved forward as if on parade, through the open valley to the foot of the mountain, then without further orders, slowly, steadily, but broken into irregular groups by the inequalities of the face of the mountain, that long line climbed up the mountain, mostly on hands and knees, amid a terrible storm of shot, shell and bullets; the rebels were driven from their entrenchments on the mountain side, and on our gallant boys went, officers and men mingled together, all rank forgotten, following their old flag away to the mountain top, a struggle for a moment and our flag was planted here and there by scores of color bearers, on the very crest of the Ridge, battery after battery was taken, battle flags and prisoners captured, and the men indeed seemed perfectly frantic—rushing down the opposite side of the mountain after the flying rebels, regardless of officers, orders or anything else.
I slept on the ground on top of the Ridge last night, and when I waked this morning found myself lying within three feet of a dead man who, I thought, was lying there asleep when I laid down there in the dark last night. I have no time to write more; one brigade of our Division started in pursuit this morning, the rest of the Division may be off when I get back to where I left it, so I must hurry.
Thank God I am again unhurt, and in excellent health. Chattanooga is full of prisoners. They are non combatants now, and Grant will remove them to a safe place in accordance with the notice Bragg gave him some days since.
Your husband.
Chattanooga, Dec. 7, 1863.
Dear wife:
I received your letter written Nov. 26, on the 3rd day of this month, and when your letter was brought to my tent I was lying on my cot indulging in some vigorous remarks concerning mules in general, and one mule in particular, which, about two hours before, had given me a hard kick on the leg as I was riding past him, cold and hungry, just returning with my Division from the pursuit of Bragg and his valiant cavaliers whom we so handsomely “cleaned out” as the soldiers say. On Monday, Nov. 23rd our Division was ordered to move out just in front of the fortifications. We did so, and the rebels, as they looked down on us from Lookout Mountain and Mission Ridge, no doubt thought we had come out for a review. But Sheridan’s Division followed us out and formed in line with us. Wonder what the rebels thought then? “Oh, a Yankee review; we’ll have some fun shelling them directly.” But out came Wood’s Division, then Cruft’s Division, then Johnson’s Division, then Howard’s entire Corps of “Potomacs.” “What can those Yankee fools mean,” Bragg must have thought, as he sat at the door of his tent on Mission Ridge and watched the long lines of blue coats and glistening guns marching around in the valley below him, almost within gun shot of his pickets, and yet not a gun fired. All was peace in Chattanooga valley that day.
The sun shone brightly, the bands played stirring airs; tattered banners that had waved on battle fields from the Potomac to the Mississippi streamed out gaily, as if proud of the battle scars they wore. Generals Grant and Hooker, and Sherman and Thomas and Logan and Reynolds and Sheridan and scores of others, with their staffs, galloped along the lines, and the scene that spread out around me like a vast panorama of war filled my heart with pride that I was a soldier and member of that great army. But what did it all mean? Bragg, from his mountain eyrie, could see what we were doing just as well as Grant who was riding around amongst us. The rebels thought they had us hemmed in so that we dared not move, and so near starved that we could not move. Two o’clock came, and all was yet quiet and peaceful, gay as a holiday review; we could see crowds of rebels watching us from Mission Ridge and Lookout Mountain, but three o’clock came, and a solitary shot away over on our left, among Wood’s men, made every fellow think: “Hark”! A few moments and another shot, then a rat-tat-tat-tat made almost every one remark: “Skirmishing going on over there.” Wood’s line moved forward, a few volleys, still Wood’s line moved forward, and Sheridan’s started forward, heavy work for a few minutes then all was quiet; two important hills were gained; cheer after cheer rang out in the valley and echoed and reverberated through the gorges of Lookout and Mission Ridge; still it was only 5 o’clock Monday afternoon. The bands commenced playing and the valley was again peaceful, but we all knew there was “something up,” and Bragg must have thought so too. We lay there all night, sleeping on our arms.
Tuesday morning, Nov. 24th, broke bright and beautiful; the sun rose clear; but for whom was it a “sun of Austerlitz”? Grant or Bragg? We talked of Austerlitz and Waterloo at headquarters that morning. During the night the moon was almost totally eclipsed. We talked of that also. It was considered a bad omen among the ancients, on the eve of battle; we concluded also that it was ominous of defeat, but not for us; we concluded that it meant Bragg because he was perched on the mountain top, nearest the moon. Daylight revealed the hills which Wood and Sheridan had won the day before, bristling with cannon of sufficient calibre to reach Bragg’s eyrie on Mission Ridge. About 9 o’clock in the morning some 30 heavy guns opened on Mission Ridge. It appeared then that we were to advance right down the valley and attack the rebel centre, but, hark! Away off on our right—3 miles away, on the opposite side of Lookout—we hear firing. What can that mean? Suddenly the cannon, with which we have been pounding away at Mission Ridge, are silent, and all eyes are turned westward toward Lookout Mountain. The sounds of battle increase there but it is on the other side of the mountain from us and we can see nothing, but the word passes around: “Hooker is storming Lookout”! My heart grows faint. Poor Hooker, with his Potomac boys are to be the forlorn hope! What? Storm that mountain peak 2400 feet high, so steep that a squirrel could scarcely climb it, and bristling all over with rebels, bayonets and cannon? Poor boys! far from your quiet New England homes, you have come a long way only to meet defeat on that mountain peak, and find your graves on its rugged sides! Lookout Mountain will only hereafter be known as a monument to a whole Corps of gallant New Englanders who died there for their country! But hold! Some one exclaims: “The firing comes nearer, our boys are getting up”! All eyes are turned toward the Mountain, and the stillness of death reigns among us in the valley, as we listen to the sounds of battle on the other side of the Mountain while all was quiet as a Puritan sabbath on our side of it. How hope and despair alternated in our breasts! How we prayed for their success and longed to assist them, can only be known by those of us who, in that valley, stood watching that afternoon and listening to the swelling diapason of their battle. But the firing actually did grow nearer, manifestly our men were driving them; Oh! now if they only can continue it, but we fear they cannot! I have a long telescope with which I can distinctly see everything on our side of the mountain. I scan the mountain with it closely and continuously, but not a soul can I see. After hours of anxious suspense I see a single rebel winding his way back from the firing and around to our side of the mountain.
I announce to the crowd of Generals standing around: “There goes a straggler”! and in an instant everybody’s glass is to his eye, but no more stragglers are seen, still the battle rages, and the little gleam of hope, that solitary straggler raised in our breasts, dies out. Minutes drag like hours, the suspense is awful, but look! look! Here comes a crowd of stragglers! here they come by hundreds, yes by thousands! The mountain is covered with them! They are broken, running! There comes our flag around the point of the mountain! There comes one of our regiments on the double quick! Oh! such a cheer as then went up in the valley! Manly cheeks were wet with tears of joy, our bands played “Hail to the Chief,” and 50 brazen throated cannon, in the very wantonness of joy, thundered out from the fortifications of Chattanooga, a salute to the old flag which was then on the mountain top. The work was done. Lookout was ours, never again to be used as a perch by rebel vultures. Didn’t we of the old Army of the Cumberland feel proud though? It was one of the regiments that fought at Chickamauga that carried that first flag to the mountain top. It was a brigade of the old Chickamauga army that led the storming party up the mountain. A straggling skirmish fire was kept up along our (the Eastern) side of the mountain, which we could trace by the flashes of the guns, until 11 o’clock at night, but then all became quiet, and again we passed the night in line of battle, sleeping on our arms. Bragg, no doubt, thought Hooker would continue to press forward across the valley from Lookout and attack his left on Mission Ridge in the morning, so he prepared for that during the night, by moving troops from his right to his left, to meet the anticipated attack of the morning, but Sherman, with his Vicksburg veterans, had all this time been lying concealed behind the hills on the North side of the Tenessee river, just North of the northern end of Mission Ridge, where Bragg’s right was, awaiting the proper moment to commence his part of the stupendous plan. The time was now come. Lookout was ours; now for Mission Ridge! Before daylight of Wednesday Nov. 25th, Sherman had his pontoons across the river, about 3 miles north of Chattanooga, and under cover of a dense fog, crossed his whole Corps and took possession of the northern extremity of Mission Ridge, finding nothing there but a few pickets, and there he fell to work fortifying. By this time Bragg saw his mistake. The attack of Wednesday was to be on his right, at the North end of Mission Ridge, instead of his left at the South end of the Ridge, so he hurriedly countermarched his troops back from his left to his right. When the fog rose, about ten o’clock in the morning, Sherman attempted to carry the summit of the Ridge but was repulsed; again he tried it but was again repulsed, still again he tried it and was repulsed. This time the fighting was all to the left of where we were instead of to the right, as it had been the day before. Sherman, after terrible fighting, had been repulsed in three successive efforts to crush the enemy’s right on the top of the Ridge, and an order came for our Division to move up the river to his support. We started. The enemy could see us from the top of the Ridge, and quickly understood (or thought they did) our design, so they commenced shelling us, as our long line of 20 regiments filed along, but we moved along until we came to where a thin strip of woodland intervened between us and the Ridge. Sheridan’s Division followed us and did the same. The enemy supposed of course that we were moving on up the river to the support of Sherman, but we were not; we halted and formed line of battle in that strip of woodland, facing Mission Ridge. This, I confess, staggered me; I couldn’t understand it; it looked as though we were going to assault the Ridge, and try to carry it by storm, lined and ribbed as it was with rifle pits, and its topmost verge crowded with rebel lines, and at least 40 cannon in our immediate front frowning down on us; we never could live a moment in the open spaces of 600 yards between the strip of woods in which we were formed, and the line of rifle pits at the base of the mountain, exposed as we would be to the fire of the 40 cannon massed, and from five to eight hundred feet immediately above us, also to the infantry fire from the rifle pits. I rode down along the line of our Division, and there I found Woods Division formed on our right and facing the Ridge just as we were; I rode on and came to Sheridan’s Division formed on Woods right and facing the same. Here was a line of veteran troops nearly two miles long, all facing Mission Ridge, and out of sight of the enemy. The purpose at once became plain to me, and I hurried back to my own Division, and on asking Gen. ____ he replied: “When 6 guns are fired in quick succession from Fort Wood, the line advances to storm the heights and carry the Ridge if possible. Take that order to Col. ____” (commanding the third brigade of our Division) “and tell him to move forward rapidly when he hears the signal.” I communicated the order at once and that was the last I saw of the brigade commander, for he was killed just as he reached the summit of the Ridge. A few moments elapse, it is about half past three o’clock p. m., when suddenly, 6 guns are rapidly fired from Fort Wood. “Forward”! rings out along that long line of men, and forward they go, through the strip of woods, we reach the open space, say 600 yards, between the edge of the woods and the rifle pits at the foot of the Ridge. “Charge”! is shouted wildly from hundreds of throats, and with a yell such as that valley never heard before, the three Divisions (60 regiments) rushed forward; the rebels are silent a moment, but then the batteries on top of the Ridge, open all at once, and the very heavens above us seemed to be rent asunder; shells go screaming over our heads, bursting above and behind us, but they hurt nobody and the men don’t notice them; about midway of the open space a shell bursts directly over my head, and so near as to make my horse frantic and almost unmanageable; he plunges and bursts breast strap and girth and off I tumble with the saddle between my legs. My orderly catches my horse at once, throws the blanket and saddle on him, gives me a “leg lift” and I am mounted again, without girth, but I hold on with my knees and catch up with our madcaps at the first rifle pits, over these we go to the second line of pits, over these we go, some of the rebels lying down to be run over, others scrambling up the hill which is becoming too steep for horses, and the General and staff are forced to abandon the direct ascent at about the second line of rifle pits; the long line of men reach the steepest part of the mountain, and they must crawl up the best way they can 150 feet more before they reach the summit, and when they do reach it, can they hold it? The rebels are there in thousands, behind breastworks, ready to hurl our brave boys back as they reach their works. One flag bearer, on hands and knees, is seen away in advance of the whole line; he crawls and climbs toward a rebel flag he sees waving above him, he gets within a few feet of it and hides behind a fallen log while he waves his flag defiantly until it almost touches the rebel flag; his regiment follows him as fast as it can; in a few moments another flag bearer gets just as near the summit at another point, and his regiment soon gets to him, but these two regiments dare not go the next twenty feet or they would be annihilated, so they crouch there and are safe from the rebels above them, who would have to rise up, to fire down at them, and so expose themselves to the fire of our fellows who are climbing up the mountain. The suspense is greater, if possible, than that with which we viewed the storming of Lookout. If we can gain that Ridge; if we can scale those breastworks, the rebel army is routed, everything is lost for them, but if we cannot scale the works few of us will get down this mountain side and back to the shelter of the woods. But a third flag and regiment reaches the other two; all eyes are turned there; the men away above us look like great ants crawling up, crouching on the outside of the rebel breastworks. One of our flags seems to be moving; look! look! look! Up! Up! Up! it goes and is planted on the rebel works; in a twinkling the crouching soldiers are up and over the works; apparently quicker than I can write it the 3 flags and 3 regiments are up, the close fighting is terrific; other flags go up and over at different points along the mountain top—the batteries have ceased, for friend and foe are mixed in a surging mass; in a few moments the flags of 60 Yankee regiments float along Mission Ridge from one end to the other, the enemy are plunging down the Eastern slope of the Ridge and our men in hot pursuit, but darkness comes too soon and the pursuit must cease; we go back to the summit of the Ridge and there behold our trophies—dead and wounded rebels under our feet by hundreds, cannon by scores scattered up and down the Ridge with yelling soldiers astraddle them, rebel flags lying around in profusion, and soldiers and officers completely and frantically drunk with excitement. Four hours more of daylight, after we gained that Ridge would not have left two whole pieces of Bragg’s army together.
Our men, stirred by the same memories, shouted “Chickamauga”! as they scaled the works at the summit, and amid the din of battle the cry “Chickamauga”! “Chickamauga”! could be heard. That is not fancy it is fact. Indeed the plain unvarnished facts of the storming of Mission Ridge are more like romance to me now than any I have ever read in Dumas, Scott or Cooper. On that night I lay down upon the ground without blankets and slept soundly, without inquiring whether my neighbors were dead or alive, but, on waking found I was sleeping among bunches of dead rebels and Federals, and within a few rods of where Bragg slept the night before, if he slept at all.
You must not think that the General and staff remained at the second line of rifle pits on the side of the mountain, where I left them a few pages back, until the fight was over. The steepness of the mountain compelled us to zigzag back and forth, ascending a little with every zigzag until we reached the summit while the hand to hand melee was going on, before the rebels broke away down the Eastern slope.
Early next morning I rode back to my quarters in the city, where I am now writing, got a new saddle girth and wrote you a brief letter, just to let you know I was safe. That was Nov. 26th, Thanksgiving Day in the United States, I believe, and it was the same with me, though my “Thanksgiving Dinner” was hard tack and raw bacon, but it was toothsome as turkey, for hunger makes fine sauce, you know. You wrote me that same day. After writing my hasty letter to you I hurried back to the Ridge and found my Division gone in pursuit of Bragg, but I soon overtook it, and we bivouacked for the night without having overtaken the enemy. On that night (26th) I rolled up in my saddle blanket and slept on the ground soundly. We started at two o’clock, on the morning of the 27th, and reached Chickamauga Creek, the bridge over which the rebels had burned in their retreat, and by daylight we had a bridge over it and marched to Greyville, where we met Davis’ Division, which had moved by a different road and had captured a battery and 300 rebels in a fight there that morning. Davis had moved by a shorter road and arrived there ahead of us. I wasn’t very sorry for it, for by him getting there before us he saved us a fight, and I like to dodge fights, but appear to have poor success at it, and a fellow stands a chance of getting just as badly hurt in a little fight as in a big one. After halting a few moments at Greyville we started in a Southeasterly direction, toward Ringgold, where we heard the sound of a battle going on, and Gen. ____, our Corps Commander, rightly supposed that Hooker, who had taken that road, had come up with the enemy. After marching ten miles very rapidly we reached Hooker and found him hotly engaged with the enemy; our Division was soon in line and ready for the word to “go in” but the rebels withdrew, and fell back to Dalton. We bivouacked at Ringgold on that night (27th) and the next day one brigade of our Division was sent down the railroad toward Dalton to destroy the railroad bridges. I asked leave to accompany this brigade, as I had been over the road with ____’s brigade of mounted infantry, before the battle of Chickamauga, and knew the country and location of the railroad bridges. The General gave me leave to go and direct the expedition, so I went along. We burned 5 railroad bridges, tore up and burned the ties of a mile of the track, took some prisoners, one of them a lieutenant on the staff of Gen. Joe Johnston, and found the houses along the road filled with dead and wounded rebels, whom we left as we found. We got back to Ringgold, in the rain, before dark, and bivouacked for the night, (28th). Gen. Turchin, who had a couple of tents along in a wagon which he had brought with him, loaned us a tent, and we all, General and staff, rolled up in our saddle blankets and slept together under that tent. I enclose a rough pencil sketch, made by one of our staff officers, depicting a portion of our staff that night just before we got any supper. Gen. ____, you see, is making desperate efforts to fry his own supper, consisting entirely of fresh pork. The African, with frying pan is endeavoring to provide something for the rest of us.
No other incidents of note occurred until we returned to Chattanooga, except, as we were returning, I was riding through the woods in company with Gen. ____, our Corps commander, and his staff, when we came across a caisson, loaded with shells, which the rebels had abandoned.
Gen. ____ ordered me to find my Division commander and have him bring the caisson in to Chattanooga. I couldn’t find my Division commander nor any team that could haul it in, so I went to work with the assistance of my orderly, and knocked some weatherboards off an old church near by, and built a rousing fire under the caisson, but had to hurry away from it after I got my fire well started, and hadn’t gone far until the fire reached the powder, and then I had the fun of hearing 90 rebel shells explode together, and I tell you, it made something of a racket in those old Georgia woods. I am glad now that I didn’t ask for leave of absence before the fight, for I should have missed it, and should always have regretted it. I shall now get one as soon as I can. Gen. Reynolds has gone to New Orleans to take command there. I should have been glad to go with him, but if I did I wouldn’t have got home until the close of the war, and I couldn’t think of that. There are many things I intended to write about when I began this, which I have omitted, but this is long enough, and I’ll quit. xxxxxxxxx
Your husband.