hope to overlap us and put himself between us and Chattanooga. We neither
saw nor heard his movement, but any man with half a head would have known
that he was making it, and we met it by a parallel movement to our left.
By morning we had edged along a good way and thrown up rude intrenchments
at a little distance from the road, on the threatened side. The day was
not very far advanced when we were attacked furiously all along the line,
beginning at the left. When repulsed, the enemy came again and again--his
persistence was dispiriting. He seemed to be using against us the law of
probabilities: of so many efforts one would eventually succeed.

One did, and it was my luck to see it win. I had been sent by my chief,
General Hazen, to order up some artillery ammunition and rode away to the
right and rear in search of it. Finding an ordnance train I obtained from
the officer in charge a few wagons loaded with what I wanted, but he
seemed in doubt as to our occupancy of the region across which I proposed
to guide them. Although assured that I had just traversed it, and that it
lay immediately behind Wood's division, he insisted on riding to the top
of the ridge behind which his train lay and overlooking the ground. We did
so, when to my astonishment I saw the entire country in front swarming
with Confederates; the very earth seemed to be moving toward us! They came
on in thousands, and so rapidly that we had barely time to turn tail and
gallop down the hill and away, leaving them in possession of the train,
many of the wagons being upset by frantic efforts to put them about. By
what miracle that officer had sensed the situation I did not learn, for we
parted company then and there and I never again saw him.

By a misunderstanding Wood's division had been withdrawn from our line of
battle just as the enemy was making an assault. Through the gap of half a
mile the Confederates charged without opposition, cutting our army clean
in two. The right divisions were broken up and with General Rosecrans in
their midst fled how they could across the country, eventually bringing up
in Chattanooga, whence Rosecrans telegraphed to Washington the destruction
of the rest of his army. The rest of his army was standing its ground.

A good deal of nonsense used to be talked about the heroism of General
Garfield, who, caught in the rout of the right, nevertheless went back and
joined the undefeated left under General Thomas. There was no great