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Folks,
Tripp has asked me to share some of the info I found with my reading in regards to time period of Before the Breakout. Basically the days and weeks right after the Battle of Chickamauga. Enjoy!
“The impression gains ground that the rebels will not attack our entrenchments, though the hills and valleys along our entire front are nightly lit up by the camp fires of the enemy, who were promised, on the evacuation of this place, that we should be speedily driven back across the Tennessee or annihilated. They know too well the strength of the position and our fighting qualities to make an attack. Rumors are current of a flank movement by the rebels, but it is not much feared.”
Echoes of Battle: The Struggle for Chattanooga, Larry Strayer and Richard Baumgartner
George W. Rouse, 1st Lieutenant 100th Illinois Infantry
“Sept. 22nd. Up on the Rossville road the Johnnies made a charge today, but were repulsed with loss by a brigade of Regulars, [though] as a rule the Regular soldiers are less efficient and reliable than the volunteers.”
“Sept. 23rd. Gen’l Rosecrans and staff rode around the lines this morning and, as is ever the case when a commanding general appears, the troops loudly cheered. But we feel more like cheering Rosecrans’ chief of staff , Gen. James A. Garfield who planned the concentration of Rosecrans’ scattered corps, and Gen. George H. Thomas, called “Pap” Thomas by his loving boys, than to offer our approving cheers to Rosecrans himself, who, had it not been for the ability of a cool-headed Garfield to plan and an imperturbable, well-poised, clear-headed, self-reliant Thomas to execute, the Army of the Cumberland would have literally been annihilated by Bragg’s overwhelming force, in detail.
Echoes of Battle: The Struggle for Chattanooga, Larry Strayer and Richard Baumgartner
Levi Ross, Sergeant 86th Illinois Infantry
“Our Pickett duty is Pretty hard. Some days we are allowed to talk & exchange Papers with the Yanks & other days we have to shoot at almost Every noise we hear. We are Tolerable well fortified & the Yanks are much better.”
Echoes of Battle: The Struggle for Chattanooga, Larry Strayer and Richard Baumgartner
Hezekiah Rabb Private 33rd Alabama Infantry
“Bragg and Rosecrans settled down to work with pick and spade, directly under each others’ guns with all their might as if preparing a grave each for the other. Bragg kept pushing the enemy’s lines in on the city until he held the river from Lookout Point to about halfway to the city and from Sherman Heights to the river above. For days the videttes of each army stood in two hundred yards and gazed at each other like grim monsters. The valley out and around Chattanooga was literally blockaded with breast works and plowed up with rifle pits.”
“For days the pickets of each army sat in their “Gopher Pits” cracking jokes with each other, while from the top of Mission Ridge and the rocky peak of Lookout went shrieking messengers of death over the heads unnoticed and uncared for by them.”
Echoes of Battle: The Struggle for Chattanooga, Larry Strayer and Richard Baumgartner
William J. Worsham, Chief Musician 19th Tennessee Infantry
Tripp has asked me to share some of the info I found with my reading in regards to time period of Before the Breakout. Basically the days and weeks right after the Battle of Chickamauga. Enjoy!
“The impression gains ground that the rebels will not attack our entrenchments, though the hills and valleys along our entire front are nightly lit up by the camp fires of the enemy, who were promised, on the evacuation of this place, that we should be speedily driven back across the Tennessee or annihilated. They know too well the strength of the position and our fighting qualities to make an attack. Rumors are current of a flank movement by the rebels, but it is not much feared.”
Echoes of Battle: The Struggle for Chattanooga, Larry Strayer and Richard Baumgartner
George W. Rouse, 1st Lieutenant 100th Illinois Infantry
“Sept. 22nd. Up on the Rossville road the Johnnies made a charge today, but were repulsed with loss by a brigade of Regulars, [though] as a rule the Regular soldiers are less efficient and reliable than the volunteers.”
“Sept. 23rd. Gen’l Rosecrans and staff rode around the lines this morning and, as is ever the case when a commanding general appears, the troops loudly cheered. But we feel more like cheering Rosecrans’ chief of staff , Gen. James A. Garfield who planned the concentration of Rosecrans’ scattered corps, and Gen. George H. Thomas, called “Pap” Thomas by his loving boys, than to offer our approving cheers to Rosecrans himself, who, had it not been for the ability of a cool-headed Garfield to plan and an imperturbable, well-poised, clear-headed, self-reliant Thomas to execute, the Army of the Cumberland would have literally been annihilated by Bragg’s overwhelming force, in detail.
Echoes of Battle: The Struggle for Chattanooga, Larry Strayer and Richard Baumgartner
Levi Ross, Sergeant 86th Illinois Infantry
“Our Pickett duty is Pretty hard. Some days we are allowed to talk & exchange Papers with the Yanks & other days we have to shoot at almost Every noise we hear. We are Tolerable well fortified & the Yanks are much better.”
Echoes of Battle: The Struggle for Chattanooga, Larry Strayer and Richard Baumgartner
Hezekiah Rabb Private 33rd Alabama Infantry
“Bragg and Rosecrans settled down to work with pick and spade, directly under each others’ guns with all their might as if preparing a grave each for the other. Bragg kept pushing the enemy’s lines in on the city until he held the river from Lookout Point to about halfway to the city and from Sherman Heights to the river above. For days the videttes of each army stood in two hundred yards and gazed at each other like grim monsters. The valley out and around Chattanooga was literally blockaded with breast works and plowed up with rifle pits.”
“For days the pickets of each army sat in their “Gopher Pits” cracking jokes with each other, while from the top of Mission Ridge and the rocky peak of Lookout went shrieking messengers of death over the heads unnoticed and uncared for by them.”
Echoes of Battle: The Struggle for Chattanooga, Larry Strayer and Richard Baumgartner
William J. Worsham, Chief Musician 19th Tennessee Infantry
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