effective strength Of 4,000 bayonets, I had lost 1,517
officers and men, including two brigade commanders. This was not
satisfactory indeed, it was most depressing--and then there was much
confusion prevailing around Rossville; and, this condition of things
doubtless increasing my gloomy reflections, it did not seem to me
that the outlook for the next day was at all auspicious, unless the
enemy was slow to improve his present advantage. Exhaustion soon
quieted all forebodings, though, and I fell into a sound sleep, from
which I was not aroused till daylight.

On the morning of the 21st the enemy failed to advance, and his
inaction gave us the opportunity for getting the broken and
disorganized army into shape. It took a large part of the day to
accomplish this, and the chances of complete victory would have been
greatly in Bragg's favor if he could have attacked us vigorously at
this time. But he had been badly hurt in the two days' conflict, and
his inactivity on the 21st showed that he too had to go through the
process of reorganization. Indeed, his crippled condition began to
show itself the preceding evening, and I have always thought that,
had General Thomas held on and attacked the Confederate right and
rear from where I made the junction with him on the Lafayette road,
the field of Chickamauga would have been relinquished to us; but it
was fated to be otherwise.

Rosecrans, McCook, and Crittenden passed out of the battle when they
went back to Chattanooga, and their absence was discouraging to all
aware of it. Doubtless this had much to do with Thomas's final
withdrawal, thus leaving the field to the enemy, though at an immense
cost in killed and wounded. The night of the 21st the army moved
back from Rossville, and my division, as the rearguard of the
Twentieth Corps, got within our lines at Chattanooga about 8 o'clock
the morning of the 22d. Our unmolested retirement from Rossville
lent additional force to the belief that the enemy had been badly
injured, and further impressed me with the conviction that we might
have held on. Indeed, the battle of Chickamauga was somewhat like
that of Stone River, victory resting with the side that had the grit
to defer longest its relinquishment of the field.

The manoeuvres by which Rosecrans had carried his army over the
Cumberland Mountains, crossed the Tennessee River, and possessed
himself of Chattanooga, merit the highest commendation up to the
abandonment