With sabre and scalpel

18–20 September 1863

Battle of Chickamauga

INTRODUCTION

That portion of the volume which relates to the Civil War is chiefly a narrative of the every-day life of a private soldier in camp, in battle, and in prison. A single experi¬ ence — namely, the battle of Chickamauga — is discussed from the standpoint of speculation. In my opinion the Southern Confederacy was won here by desperate valor and lost by the failure of the commanding general to appreciate the

INTRODUCTION

In my own case, in the first two or three minor engage¬ ments I was not scared; in fact, the excitement or exhilara¬ tion was rather enjoyable; but this was “the valor of igno¬ rance.” After I had learned what war really was I never went under fire without experiencing an overpowering sense of dread and fear, with the single exception of the incident of riding through the Union lines at Chickamauga, which is given further on.

WITH SABRE AND SCALPEL

In one of these homes was then living Mrs. John Thomas, and as Nat Turner’s band was seen approaching she and her fifteen-year-old son narrowly escaped the common doom by running, closely pursued, into the dense forest, where they were safely concealed. By this narrow margin was saved the life of the one human being who, in my opinion, defeated the Southern Confederacy and saved the cause of the Union in the crisis of the Civil War on the field of Chickamauga, where the independence of the South was won and thrown away. That fifteen-year-old boy was George H. Thomas, who lived to be the “Rock of Chicka¬ mauga.”

THE CIVIL WAR

Late in August we saddled up for the march to Chatta¬ nooga. Two nights before we were to start my horse, tethered with a rope, got it tangled under one of his pasterns and was thrown lame. For three days of the march I walked and led my mount: they were long and tiresome days. Fortunately, the command moved leisurely, to save the horses — about twenty miles a day. By starting off at three or four in the morning I would be passed by the column about noon, and would catch up when they bivouacked for the night, usually long after dark. On the third day I made a temporary exchange with a trooper who was con¬ tent to keep my disabled mount with the wagons, and se¬ cured in this way a first-class horse which I rode all through the Chickamauga campaign.