Year: 1876




A VIVID ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE BY


ONE WHO WAS THERE.


To Col. r. l.. Kimberly we owe very
spirited narrative of the affair in the New
York Times. The writer commanded
on that occasion the 41st and 93d Ohio
regiments in Gen. Hazen's brigade of
Gen. T. j. Woods division and his
command captured the 2Sth Alabama
and its works on Orchard Knob, where
Grant made his headquarters during
the battle. We quote as follows


Our troops lay quietly along the Or
chard Knob ridge till the middle of the
afternoon. For two or three hours be-
fore that time we saw Bragg's infantry
hurrying along the crest of Missionary
ridge toward Sherman's right. 1t was
evident enough that Bragg was trusting
in his apparently impregnable position
on the ridge in our front, and sending
large bodies of troops to protect his
more vulnerable flank, where Sherman
was vigorously pressing him. Long be-
fore the army of the Cumberland was
ordered to move, the necessity of max
ing some diversion in Shermans favor
was discussed among the general officers
congregated about Grants headquar-
ters. The common understanding was
expected to turn the ridge on the enemys
right but we could see that by the mid
die of the day his progress had ceased
while the hurrying of Braggs troops
along the ridge in our front gave rise to
a fear that Sherman would be over
whelmed. Everybody, therefore, was
prepared for the order to advance and
take the rife pits at the foot of the
| ridge" That was the order exactly as
it was communicated to division and
brigade commanders, who were instruct
ed to move at the signal of three guns
from the battery on Orchard Knob 1t
was TO be an audacious menace of the
enemys centre, to compel him to recall
the troops he was sending against Sher-
man, or at least to stop the sending of
more troops in that direction. The six
guns from the Orchard Knob battery
belched forth the signal, and the army
of the Cumberland sprang to its feet
and moved forward out of the cover of
trees and underbrush on the Orchard
Knob position, and into the level open
plain that stretched away to the foot of
Missionary ridge, mile or more dis
tant. As the several lines broke from
the cover into the plain, Bragg's artil-
lery ON the ridge saluted them with a
tremendous thunder and storm of
screeching shells. 1t was a magnificent
spectacle. Away to the right and the
left, the long, steady lines dwindled in
the view until men and even regiments
lost their individuality, and the firm
ranks became, upon the dead brown lev
ell of the plain, mere stripes of blue,
fringed with glittering bayonets, and
marked at decreasing intervals by the
bright scarlet of the regimental colors.
Upon the frowning ridge in front of
them, Bragg's massed artillery belched
forth incessant fire, and over their heads
the air was full of the vanishing white
puffs Of smoke from bursting shells. The
objective point, the rife-pits at the foot
of the ridge, was silent as death till the
attacking army had crossed a third of
the plain, and then its few defenders
jumped from their cover and scampered
nimbly up the narrow, tortuous paths to
the top of the ridge, without shot. On
went the appalling menace to Bragg's
centre, the centre which, at the top of 600
feet of steep and rugged hillside, strewn
with logs and brush, and cut here and
there by water-washed gullies, lay be-
hind earth works which it seemed no
foe could ever reach. The rife-pits we're
gained, an almost bloodless victory thus
far, for the tremendous artillery fire had
been too high throughout


Now came the crisis in the grand war
drama. The rihe-pits were nothing
more than zig-zag line of logs laid