blood of friend and foe mingled in the
stream until its waters were said to be red with the life-blood of the
struggling combatants. At the close of the fierce combat the few that
survived made a peace and covenant, and then and there declared that
for all time the sluggish stream should be called Chickamauga, the
"river of blood." Such is the legend of the great battleground and the
river from whence it takes its name.

General Buckner had come down from East Tennessee with his three
divisions, Stewart's, Hindman's, and Preston's, and had joined General
Bragg some time before our arrival, making General Bragg's organized
army forty-three thousand eight hundred and sixty-six strong. He was
further reinforced by eleven thousand five hundred from General Joseph
E. Johnston's army in Mississippi and five thousand under General
Longstreet, making a total of sixty thousand three hundred and
thirty-six, less casualties of the 18th and 19th of one thousand one
hundred and twenty-four; so as to numbers on the morning of the 20th,
Bragg had of all arms fifty-nine thousand two hundred and forty-two;
while the Federal commander claimed only sixty thousand three hundred
and sixty six, but at least five thousand more on detached duty
and non-combatants, such as surgeons, commissaries, quartermasters,
teamsters, guards, etc. Bragg's rolls covered all men in his army.
Rosecrans was far superior in artillery and cavalry, as all of the
batteries belonging to Longstreet's corps, or that were to attend him
in the campaign of the West, were far back in South Carolina, making
what speed possible on the clumsy and cumbersome railroads of that
day. So it was with Wofford's and Bryan's Brigades, of McLaw's
Division, Jenkins' and one of Hood's, as well as all of the
subsistence and ordnance trains. The artillery assigned to General
Longstreet by General Lee consisted of Ashland's and Bedford's
(Virginia), Brooks' (South Carolina), and Madison's (Louisiana)
batteries of light artillery, and two Virginia batteries of position,
all under the command of Colonel Alexander.

As for transportation, the soldiers carried all they possessed on
their backs, with four days of cooked rations all the time. Generally
one or two pieces of light utensils were carried by each company, in
which all the bread and meat were cooked during the night.

Our quartermasters gathered up what they could of teams and wagons
from the refuse of Bragg's trains to make a sem