and," was forced to fall back to
Chattanooga. Rosecrans pressed him hard, with the intent of carrying
out that pet scheme of the North, forcing his army down through Georgia
and riddling the Cotton States. It is inessential here to recount the
details of these movements. Rosecrans had a heavy and compact force;
ours was weak and scattered, and Bragg's urgent appeal for men met the
invariable answer, there were none to send. For the same
reason--insufficient force--Buckner was forced to abandon Knoxville;
and a few weeks later Cumberland Gap, the key-position to East
Tennessee and Georgia, was surrendered!

At this critical juncture the loss of that position could scarcely be
exaggerated; and the public indignantly demanded of Government why it
had been lost. The War Department shifted the responsibility, and
declared that no reason existed; that the place was provisioned and
impregnable, and that the responsibility rested alone with the officer
in command, who was now a prisoner with his whole force.

This hardly satisfied the public clamor; and so ill-omened a
commencement augured badly for the success of the campaign for
position, in which both armies were now manoeuvring. The real details
of these preliminary movements are scarcely clear to this day. General
Bragg's friends declare that he forced Rosecrans to the position; his
enemies, that Rosecrans first out-generaled him and then laid himself
open to destruction, while Bragg took no advantage of the situation.

However this may be, we know that on the morning of the 19th September,
'63, the battle of Chickamauga was commenced by the enemy in a series
of obstinate division engagements, rather than in a general battle;
Bragg's object being to gain the Chattanooga road in the enemy's rear,
and his to prevent it. The fighting was heavy, stubborn and fierce, and
its brunt was borne by Walker, Hood and Cleburne. Night fell on an
undecided field, where neither had advantage; and the enemy perhaps had
suffered more heavily than we.

All that night he worked hard to strengthen his position; and our
attack--which was to have commenced just at dawn--was delayed from some
misapprehension of orders. At length Breckinridge and Cleburne opened
the fight, and then it raged with desperate, bloody obstinacy, until
late afternoon. At that time the Confederate right had been repulsed;
but Longstreet's left had driven the enemy before it. Then the whole
southern line reformed; mov