Then it was that we learned that Chickamauga was, not a defeat, but what seemed at the time a great disaster to the Union Army. And such it really was in point of munitions of war that were lost, and the great numbers of Union soldiers that fell wounded or dead. But a defeat it was not; and had the battle been fought at Chattanooga instead of Chickamauga, Chattanooga would have been lost to us, and disaster overwhelming and crushing would have been the fate of the Army of the Cumberland. Had we halted at Chattanooga instead of marching out to Chickamauga, even though McCook had been with us, we might have had Vicksburg reversed.

I do not believe there was a man who remained in the front fighting on the Sunday of Chickamauga who thought of defeat, so little do they who are in the line know of the actual state of affairs in active army life.

We bivouacked around Rossville on Sunday night, and as we gathered in groops about our camp-fires that night, we talked of the scenes of the day or mourned the loss of the comrades who had fallen, and all discussed the probabilities of the morrow on another field, confident of ultimate success. The morning found our portion of the army moving back toward Chattanooga, our campanies and regiments intact, except for the actual losses of the battle field. Through the afternoon of that day we listened to the distant rumble and roar of the guns of the 14th Army Corps, sounding like the last mutterings of a great storm that had spent its strength, and was drawing to a close from shere exhaustion. As proof of the fact that Chickamauga was not a defeat, we have the fact that Gen. Geo. H. Thomas, one of the grandest heroes and noblest men developed by the war, was able with a single corps to hold the entire army of Bragg at bay until our lines were established in and about Chattanooga. Nor was Bragg’s army able to follow up the advantage gained at Chickamauga. He had been able only to check our further advance, but not to drive us back from Chattanooga. The bravery of our men at Chickamauga was fully equaled by their patience and endurance of the siege of Chattanooga—a siege for two long months that were full of all that goes to make the soldier’s life something to be dreaded, except for a noble and holy cause.