The battle of Chickamauga was fought on Saturday and Sunday, September 19 and 20, 1863, the farthest extremity of the field being about thirteen miles southwest of Chattanooga, extending up to about seven miles of that city, which is about the dividing line between the States of Georgia and Tennessee. General Rosecrans was in command of the Federal forces, and General Bragg was in command of the Confederates.

We are standing to-day on the exact spot in the old field near Glass Mill where we dismounted to fight, and from which we advanced to take part in that bloody and hard-fought battle between American soldiers. We feel that we are standing upon consecrated ground, baptized as it has been by the best and purest blood that ever pulsated in human veins. It was here, amid the smoke of battle, that the forms of personal friends and comrades faded from our sight and we beheld them no more. As we gaze up into the blue skies that panoply these mountains and valleys, we seem to feel that their spirits hover around here yet, and that we can again commune with them. As imagination paints, we feel that same inspiring emotion which nothing on earth can excite save the busy preparation for battle. As we listen to its roar—the boom of cannon, the crash of musketry, the shouts of advancing columns—we experience the light, airy feeling, twitching of the nerves, and restless expectation that an impending conflict alone can produce, and feel that we breathe an atmosphere high above this earth.

Rosecrans in advancing from Chattanooga had marched by his right flank toward the Alabama line. He had supposed that General Bragg was retreating; and when Bragg marched back, taking position at La Fayette, Ga., he seemingly became alarmed and, with a view of getting together his scattered columns, marched back toward Chattanooga along the line of Missionary Ridge, covered by the mountainous country and the Chickamauga River south of his line of march. About ten days before the battle Wharton’s Division of cavalry, to which he belonged, was ordered up from Rome, Ga., where we had been since our retreat from Middle Tennessee. This inactivity had become tiresome, and the order to move was received with delight. The air was pregnant with rumors. A great battle was said to be imminent. The men moved with alacrity and determination, for they felt that the opportunity was at hand when they could regain lost territory and drive the enemy beyond their homes. Some scouting and skirmishing took place before the general engagement. We remember that at Tryon Factory, Bluebird Gap, McLemore’s Cove, and other places we had hard fighting, driving in their right flank. General Forrest with his cavalry had opened the fight at Reed’s Bridge, on the Chickamauga, on Friday, the 18th. On Saturday, the 19th, most of the Confederate army had passed to the north side of the river and confronted the enemy, whose right wing rested at Lee & Gordon’s mill and extended in a northern direction, covering the roads leading from La Fayette to Chattanooga. Fighting took place during the day, and late in the evening, by a united charge by Cleburne’s and Cheatham’s Divisions, they drove the enemy and gained some advantage, but with considerable loss. General Longstreet arrived late that evening, and a portion of his corps came upon the field that night—to wit, McLaws’s and Hood’s small divisions, numbering not exceeding eight thousand muskets. This was the only portion of his corps that participated in the next day’s battle. On consultation that night at Bragg’s headquarters, the Confederate army was divided into two wings, General Polk to command the right and General Longstreet the left. The order was for Polk to commence the fight on the morrow at daylight, when it was to be taken up successively along the line to the left. For some cause the attack did not commence until late in the day, which circumstance did and has since caused serious comment regarding the result. We thought then and see now that if the Confederates had had two more hours of daylight General Thomas would have shared the fate of McCook and Crittenden, commanding the other two corps of the enemy, and would have been completely shattered and broken to pieces. This failure of the brave old Bishop to come to time was afterwards the subject of court-martial investigation, though no one ever doubted his courage or loyalty to the cause for which he afterwards gave his life; yet history will hold him responsible for the great mistake, whether caused by subordinates or not. It was midday, we suppose, when General Wharton’s Division was dismounted in the old field upon the bank of the Chickamauga at Glass’s Mill. They formed the left of Bragg’s line of battle, with Hood’s Division on our right at Lee & Gordon’s mill. We judged from the firing that the line of battle was some five miles in length, and that the battle was raging with desperate fury at this time.

It was Sunday—a calm, clear September day in the mountains of Georgia, amid scenery that Switzerland could not excel in romantic grandeur. The rich green foliage of the mountains served as a background, and from its sides and gorges arose in dense volumes the sulphurous smoke of battle. The fiery wave of battle boiled and surged in its maddening fury during the evening and until nightfall. Commencing on the right, the deafening thunder would roll along the line toward the left, when it would be taken up and swept back to where it started. The sound indicated with accuracy the result in different parts of the field; for as a column would advance to the charge you would first hear the rapid and quick discharge of the batteries, indicating that their position was threatened, then would come a crash of musketry as if every tree in the forest had fallen, and high above all this the shouts of the Confederates. For a moment a deathlike silence would ensue just there, unmistakably evidencing the fact that the battery had been taken or driven from the field. This would hardly die away at a given point before it would be repeated successively along the line and echoed back again, swelling at times to such a mighty chorus manufactured from the thunders of war that it seemed that both heaven and earth would be torn asunder. Truly

We feel our inability to give more than a faint conception of the grandeur of the scene that met the eyes and fell upon the ears of those who participated in the battle of Chickamauga. They can never cease to remember it. The roar of the four hundred cannon from Round Top and Cemetery Hill, at Gettysburg, which preceded Pickett’s charge, has never been equaled, though the casualties resulting from this grand artillery duel were comparatively few; while at Chickamauga all day long on Sunday there was a series of infantry charges upon batteries in chosen position, in which whole companies and regiments were swept away like the morning mist before the rays of the sun.

While sitting upon our horses listening to all this, we noticed a courier gallop up to General Wharton and deliver a message. We were ordered to dismount, as heretofore stated, and advance toward a battery that was shelling us from an eminence across the Chickamauga and about one-half mile distant. The order to advance was received with lusty cheers, for the men were chafing to go forward. The brigade was composed of the Eighth and Eleventh Texas, the First Kentucky, and the Fourth Tennessee Regiments. Col. Thomas