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CHICKAMAUGA—THE GREAT BATTLE OF THE IVEST.

Cleburne, with Cheatham upon his left, moved upon them “ in the gloaming ”in magnificent style, capturing three pieces of artillery, a number of caissons,two stand of colors, and three hundred prisoners. The contest was obsti-nate, for a time, on our left, where log breastworks were encountered; andhere that fine soldier, Brigadier-General Preston Smith, of Cheatham’s divi-sion, lost his life. Discovering that our right extended beyond the enemy, Ithrew two batteries in advance of our fighting line and almost abreast ofthat of the enemy. These caused a hasty abandonment of the breastworksand a falling back of some half a mile. This ended the contest for the day.

General Rosecrans made a very natural mistake about our overwhelmingnumbers. But it was a big mistake. The South, from patriotic pride, stillkept up its old military organizations, for how could it merge together divi-sions and brigades around which clustered such glorious memories ? But thewaste of war had reduced them to mere skeleton divisions and brigades. Mycorps at Chickamauga was but little more than one-third of the size of mydivision at Yorktown, and so it was through the whole Southern army. Cap-tain W. M. Polk, from data furnished him by General Marcus J. Wright, hasgiven an estimate of the numbers in the respective corps and divisions of thetwo armies; he concludes that the Federals had 45,855 and the Confederates33,897 in the battle of the 19th.

I witnessed some of the heaviest fighting on the afternoon of the 19th, andnever saw so little straggling from the field. I saw but one deserter fromHood’s ranks, and not one from Cleburne’s. The divisions of Hindman,Breckinridge, and Preston had not been put into the fight, and two brigadesof McLaws ’s (Kershaw’s and Humphreys’s) were expected next day. Bose-crans had put in all but two of his brigades. The outlook seemed hopefulfor the Confederates. Longstreet arrived at 11 p. M. on the 19tli. &

Soon after, General Bragg called together some of his officers and ven-tured upon that hazardous experiment, a change of organization in face ofthe enemy. He divided his army into two wings; he gave to Polk the rightwing, consisting of the corps of Hill and Walker, and the division of Cheat-ham,— comprising in all 18,794 infantry and artillery, with 3500 cavalryunder Forrest; to Longstreet he gave the left wing, consisting of the corpsof Buckner and Hood, and the division of Hindman,— 22,849 infantry andartillery, with 4000 cavalry under Wheeler. That night Bragg announced hispurpose of adhering to his plan of the 19th for the 20th, viz., successiveattacks from right to left, and he gave his wing commanders orders to beginat daylight. I left Cleburne, after his fight, at 11 p. m., and rode with Cap-tains Coleman and Reid five miles to Tedford’s Ford, where the orders for the

& While lying on the Rapidan in August, afterthat disastrous day at Gettysburg , Longstreet hadsuggested to General Lee the reenforcing of Bragg.The general went to Richmond , and after a timegot the consent of the Confederate authorities tosend Longstreet, without artillery or cavalry, withthe much reduced divisions of McLaws and Hood.Lee followed Longstreet to his horse to see himoff, and as he was mounting said, “General, you

must beat those people.” (Lee always called theFederals “those people.”) Longstreet said, “ Gen-eral, if you will give your orders that the enemy*when beaten, shall be destroyed, I will promise togive you victory, if I livo ; but I would not give thelife of a single soldier of mine for a barren vic-tory.” Lee replied, “The order has beon given andwill be repeated.”—T). H. II. [See p. OTd *° lstrength of Longstreet’s force.]