The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1865-07-12
Battle Field of ChIekamauga,

| Commercial has just visited the battle
field of Chickamauga, and gives, in well
written letter, his impressions of It's ap-
pearance. He left Chattanooga on the
morning of the 9th ult., and entered the
field By the famed Rossville Gap. He
says:
AS soon as we entered the gap, our
eyes met unmistakable signs of the skir-
mishing which took place through the
narrow defle, as the rebels fell back
slowly toward the final line of battle. A
squad of tired rebel soldiers, on their way
to their homes, sat by the road side as we
passed, eyeing US with glum stolidity,
evidently debating the risks of an encoun-
ter with the well filed holsters that hung
on our saddles. We came upon the
scene of the first days battle-September
19th-on the left of the Lafayette road.
Here it had been falsely represented that
rebel brigade was yet this side of
Chickamauga creek, without support, and
that rapid movement might succeed in
capturing them. A division was quickly
hurried into the woods and ran against,
instead of a "demoralized" brigade, Long
streets corps, in good fighting condition,
and the conflict soon became fearful. 1t
was on opened ground, neither party
having time to do anything more than
throw up in few places, rails or logs to
the height of two or three feet. Our loss
was very heavy, General Rrannau's diVls-
ion alone losing, in few hours, over
$500 men. Our lines were forced back
to the road and badly shattered.
THE EVIDENCES OF CONTENTION AND
DEATH.
The ground was not lacking in evi-
dences of the bloody work which had
been enacted upon it. Although Nature
had, for two years, been undisturbed in
her kindly efforts to restore and to heal,
yet the whole surface was strewn with
CHASTITY proofs of the mighty wreck which
had been made there. No army had be-
fore passed through there, the farms were
quiet and prospering; the cattle were in
the fields, and as the destroying columns
swayed madIy to and fro, crushing the
fences before them, many of them met
death, and in all directions are scattered
heaps of bones that show where they fell |
The ground is rolling, and about equally |
divided between field and forest, and /
through these lines were formed, with .
regard, mainly, to the fitness eff the posi-,
ton, and little to its claarness, or other
wise. As we rode over the field, it was
plainly evident where the rebel dead had
been buried, and where our own, the few
of them that were granted that peor
boon. The rebel soldiers had been placed
in graves, however shallow, and decently
covered with earth or stones, and the spot
marked by a neat head board, labelled,
and the whole often surrounded by
square pen Of rails. Our own boys had
the hard fate of being left on the field,
and when the rebels vouchsafed to bury
them, they were collected il rows, or in
groups of two or three, upon the ground,
and a feE spadefuls Of earth thrown over
them. [ do not suppose that one-half
Of our dead were buried, even thus slight
ly, and before spring the rain had exposed
the extremitses of these. At one end of
one of these little mounds iay pair of
skulls, bleaching in the sun, and, at the
other, two pair of shoes, full of bones
Better that they sho1ld have lain in the
open air, wrapped in their blood stained
blankets, than to have them subjected to
this mockery. Iu one Of these skulls the
wasps had built their nest, and fitting to
and fro with busy wing, they we're hiving
their little stores, and would defend them
with boldness against aBy who intrude
upon their strange dwelling place.
In another place, at the foot of tree,
lay little heap of human bones, where
some soldier had persisted, and remained .
unburied. Here, mortally stricken, he /
had, perhaps, painfully dragged himself
q few PAGES from the place where he fell, /
and leaned heavily against the friendly
trunk of the great tree, while the route of
battle ragged fsrcely about him, and bis
hard pressed comrades were driven back
step by step, till at last the "breathless
darkness" gathered thick about him, and
he bowed his head in "stern agony" and
the soul escaped from its prison house,
After surveying this part of the field
we rode away towards Crawfsh Springs,
near the second days fighting, with a
view to discussing, by the aid of its cool
waters, the collation. We had brought. On
the way I dismounted, reverently, to pick
up battered bullet lying by the wayside.
Crawfsh Springs should be visited By all
who 60 to the battle field of.Chickamauga.
The water flows out in a broad, noiseless
sheet from the foot Of hill about fifty
feet in elevation, and is said to be always
clear and of the same proportions in
ubafnuar ueatbar Here durinp a 0ar+