Dave Powell: Thankful For . . .
While I have a great deal to be thankful for, there is one organization I want to single out this year: the Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park, a unit of the National Park Service. Over the years, I have come to know many of the staff—particularly Park Historian Jim Ogden and Interpretive Ranger Lee White—and value them as friends. When I first started studying the battle, I did not intend to write a book about the subject (let alone six books) but no matter what my interest, they made the park’s resources available. And what resources they were. Primary source accounts, photographs, and especially the outdoor classroom of the battlefield itself, with all its monuments, markers, and interpretive features. They also tirelessly answered my questions, debated my (sometimes half-baked) theories, and offered up astute counterpoints when needed.
It has been more than twenty years since I started making annual treks to northern Georgia to study the field, treks that have evolved from individual excursions into an annual March Seminar. Every trip deepens my understanding of that cataclysmic event of 160 years ago. I am very grateful that veterans first thought to preserve the field in perpetuity, and that a century and a half later, there are still stewards here to ensure its ongoing conservation – even expansion, thanks to a motivated civil war community.
Do you have a park that is special to you? I bet you do.
CHICKAMAUGA
Horseshoe Ridge and Snodgrass Hill – Then and Now
It is Monday afternoon after the reenactment of the Battle of Chickamauga in McLemore’s Cove. I am standing on a knoll overlooking Dyer Field on the actual battlefield. A hundred and fifty years before I would have seen Bushrod Johnson’s Division of Tennesseans attacking Major John Mendenhall’s 26 Union cannon lined up on the western side of Dyer Field unsuccessfully attempting to stop the victorious Confederate troops after smashing through the gap in the center of the Blue defensive line. That gap was caused by the Union Commander William Rosecrans’ mistaken order moving Thomas Wood’s Division to fill a gap that did not exist thereby creating a division wide break in the line just as James Longstreet’s two divisions that just arrived from Virginia by train launched an attack.
Where I stand would have been a six gun battery of the 1st Ohio and three remaining guns of a battery of the 1st Michigan, along with a brigade from Wood’s errant division. Jerome Robinson’s Texas brigade of Longstreet’s Corps was coming up the hill but were driven back. A second attack by another of Longstreet’s brigades made up of South Carolinians commanded by Brigadier Joseph Kershaw finally carried the knoll pushing the Union troops to the crest of another higher elongated hill to their rear – Horseshoe Ridge and Snodgrass Hill cresting on the Ridge’s eastern end. George Thomas, the commander of the Fourteenth Corps of the Army of the Cumberland had moved his headquarters to the top of Snodgrass Hill and was organizing a last ditch defense to prevent the Confederates from cutting off the retreating army from getting back to the relative safety of Chattanooga, and justly earning his nom de guerre “The Rock of Chickamauga.” As I turn to begin my own trek up the slope, I see the South Carolina marble obelisk memorial to its troops that fought the two day battle. The obelisk replaced a bronze palmetto tree that originally topped the monument which was damaged by lightning.
The day before I repeated that retreat to a much smaller knoll before an audience in McLemore’s Cove. It was a beautiful day, making it comfortable in my woolen uniform. I and the rest of my company stopped behind log breastworks hastily erected and began firing at the oncoming ersatz Confederates. An audience of well over a thousand watched as even more Rebels marched into attack formation to assault our defensive line..
I walk down a little used service trail towards unpaved Vittetoe Road that bordered the southwestern based of Horseshoe Ridge. Vittetoe Road, with a steep bank rising above its edge facing Horseshoe Ridge shielding from both Union eyes and gunfire, provided an ideal staging area for Kershaw to line up his brigade in an attack formation. I crawl up the bank on the edge of the road and hike about 80 yards along a trail though heavily wooded steep terrain towards the crest of Horseshoe Ridge to read the inscription on the monument erected in memory of Kershaw’s Brigade. Walking another 50 yards uphill brings me to the crest of the ridge where I am practically out of breath. There Ohio troops were waiting, some of which were armed with Colt manufactured rifles that had revolver cylinder transplants each with a five round capacity. Their withering fire against troops armed with single shot muskets ultimately helped to inflict casualties of up to a third of the brigade’s strength and drove the attackers back down the slopes to the safety of Vittetoe Road.
I walk back down the trail from the crest of Horseshoe Ridge following the path of Kershaw’s retreating troops and turn right to follow Vittetoe Road past the iron tablets for each of his brigades that list the casualties suffered that day. I would have seen Kershaw’s troops licking their wounds, and more troops lining up in battle formation beyond. I soon come upon other brigade tablets along the road. They are for Johnson’s Division minus one of his brigades which had severely suffered from the fire from the line of Mendenhall’s cannons to break that line of artillery and was no longer combat ready. Johnson’s remaining two brigades were also winded from previous combat, but would have been resting along the bank along Vittetoe Road’s edge providing cover from the fire from the Union guns on the crest. However, there would have been a gap between Johnson’s right flank and Kershaw’s left. Patton Anderson’s fresh Brigade of Mississippians from another division (Thomas Hindman’s) would soon follow and fill in that gap. After a short rest Johnson’s two brigades along with Anderson’s would move forward to attempt to flank the hodgepodge of Union regiments gathering on Snodgrass Hill and Horseshoe Ridge while Kershaw’s battered brigade rested behind the bank..
However, the alighment of the advancing three brigades soon evaporated. Anderson’s fresh troops moved more rapidly up a ravine and became separated from Johnson’s other two brigades. The Ohio troops with the repeating Colt rifles were able to drive back Anderson’s regiments unsupported by Johnson’s other brigades.
After the repulse of Anderson’s brigade, Johnson’s two brigades approached the western end of the crest of Horseshoe Ridge. Johnson’s tired troops moved cautiously through the thick woods not wanting to be surprised by an unseen enemy hidden by the woods to their front. However, as they advanced, there was in fact no enemy on Horseshoe Ridge’s crest to their front because Thomas had no more regiments to extend his line to meet the advancing Confederates.. The door to safety for the rest of the Army of the Cumberland was about to be slammed shut if Thomas’s defensive line collapsed.
Rosecrans was a competent planner, and if a battle proceeded in accordance with his plans, he performed admirably on the battlefield as he did nine months earlier at the New Year’s Battle of Stone’s River (Murfreesboro to the Confederates) where he soundly thrashed the same Army of Tennessee he again fought at Chickamauga. But now his plans went awry when Wood obeyed orders causing a fatal gap in his defensive line. President Lincoln later described his performance at Chicamauga “like a duck hit on the head.” In his planning for this engagement he held a corps in reserve commanded by Gordon Granger. Granger had no orders to advance but, hearing the sound of battle the previous day and this morning, had decided to move his reserve corps to the sound of battle. As Johnson’s two brigades were advancing up the southern slope of Horseshoe Ridge, Granger was advancing up the northern slope of the same ridge.
Granger won the race by minutes, and as Johnson’s brigades approached the crest of Horseshoe Ridge, Granger’s troops were just being formed in line of battle. His fresh reserves counterattacked driving Johnson’s brigades back to Vittetoe Road. To protect Johnson’s retreating troops Kershaw launched another attack that was also repulsed. Thomas’s flank was secure and the rest of the retreating Army of the Cumberland would live to fight another day.
After passing beyond the last brigade iron tablet along Vittetoe Road I take another trail perpendicular to the road that takes me to Thomas’s flank on the western portion of Horseshoe Ridge. The climb is not as steep as that which Kershaw’s and Anderson’s brigades had to scale, but the woods are just as thick. I hike past Lieutenant William Everett’s Georgia Battery and Captain S. H. Dent’s Alabama Battery placed on the spur of the ridge to support Johnson’s and Anderson’s attacks. The Confederate artillery would have done little damage Thomas’s flank with the forest blocking the line of sight necessary to shell the Union troops.
The fighting continued. The brigades of Zach Deas and Arthur Manigault, also part of Hindman’s Division but arriving later than Anderson’s Brigade, also launched an attack to find the flank of the Thomas’s line on Horseshoe Ridge, but now Granger’s fresh troops were able to beat them back.
Now I am on the crest of Horseshoe Ridge where the flank of Thomas’s line was holding firm, but the defenders are running low on ammunition. The Confederates continued to attack but the assaults were not coordinated and allowed Thomas to move his troops to critical points to shore up his lines during each independent attack.
During yesterday’s reenactment 21st century Confederates approached our improvised breastworks and stood less than fifty yards away blasting away at us as did the original Confederates here 150 years ago. Although the ammunition consisted of harmless blanks, the emotions of holding back the enemy by firing as fast as we could helps me visualize the events on the very same ground where I am standing: commanders screaming and swearing to keep up our rate of fire, the dusk now beginning to descend on the actual battlefield making it harder to distinguish anything between the trees as the smoke from the discharged muskets and cannon that blanketed yesterday’s field of fire did as well, and the elation of seeing the reinforcements arriving in the nick of time as the numbers of attackers threatened to overwhelm us.
As the Union forces did on this battlefield we also counterattacked when the Confederates at our reenactment fell back. Some of Thomas’s regiments were embolden by the enemy’s retreat and rushed from their defended positions to inflict yet more casualties on the Confederates running down the downward slope. Our reenactment company did so but other “enemy” troops awaiting their scripted turn to attack our lines raised their muskets as our momentum made it difficult to stop. They fired a volley as we ran toward them, and we fell to the ground in simulated death throes as we secretly enjoyed watching the battle come to an end.
As I walk along Horseshoe Ridge toward Snodgrass Hill, I can imagine the flank of the defenders beginning to collapse. New brigades had come to reinforce those whose earlier assaults failed because of superior firepower from soldiers armed with repeating rifles defending higher ground. Also, uncoordinated assaults allowed Thomas to shift defenders not under attack to parts of his line that began to buckle under the pressure of individual Confederate brigades.
The light is beginning to fade as the time of the day approaches the same time 150 years ago when the defense of Horseshoe Ridge and Snodgrass Hill were also fading. Thomas had earlier left the field after being ordered to organize a defense further to the rear by Rosecrans. The order to fall back was passed down the line for the units to withdraw, but it failed to reach the flank that has been constantly under assault. The Ohio troops that held off assault after assault were using their last rounds of ammunition to stem the irresistible gray tide.
As the rest of the Army of the Cumberland left the field for the safety of Chattanooga more Confederates from Florida, North Carolina and Virginia joined the fight and the attacks became more coordinated Eventually the Union regiments holding the flank were surrounded and captured, including the 21st Ohio Regiment with their Colt repeating rifles held off the Confederates until even the scavenged cartridge boxes of the dead and wounded were empty.
As darkness blankets the battlefield, I walk by the cabin of George Washington Snodgrass for whom the hill is named and return to my car. I leave the Hill and the Ridge to the ghosts that stand atop of the monuments of stone frozen in time defending the Union.