Indeed, the Confederates had rail transportation almost to  Loudon, two thirds of the way to Knoxville. But there weren’t enough trains for all of Longstreet’s 11,000 infantry to make the journey at the same time.

Complicating things further, Longstreet had to move pontoon boats which he would need to bridge the Tennessee River at Loudon.

So when they did ride, the troops had a long wait between stations, and a hungry wait, at that, for rations had not been supplied. And the rides were in box cars or on open flat cars, and the weather was turning breezy and cold.

The trains shuttled back and forth, pausing frequently, according to historian Robert K. Krick to take on wood and water for the steam engine’s boilers—wood the men were expected to cut and water they had to fetch. The sixty-mile trip from Tyner’s Station to Sweet Water, for some, took all afternoon and most of the night.

Humphreys Brigade rode in this manner from Tyner’s to Ooltewah just in time for what Spartan Band diarist William H. Hill said was a “heavy frost” that Saturday morning, Nov. 7. The next day, Sunday, they were in Sweet Water, greeted by “another large frost,” Hill wrote, and again no rations.

Longstreet wrote later that the general in command in Sweet Water told him “that he had not been advised of my move, and so far from being ordered to have rations or supplies for us, he was ordered to send everything of the kind to” General Bragg at Chattanooga.

Years later, writing of Bragg’s logistical deficiencies, Longstreet remembered that they argued via telegraph about the missing rations but solved nothing and: “It began to look more like a campaign against Longstreet than against Burnside.”

Cold weather was a hardship for men without blankets or shoes. Longstreet: “We were recently from Virginia—coming at the heated season—where we left most of our clothing and blankets…”

There was a light snow on Monday, Nov. 9, and more frost on Nov. 12, when the brigade and the rest of Longstreet’s Corps finally left the trains behind at Sweet Water. The brigade left their camp at midnight on Nov. 13 and took to the roads through Philadelphia, and on to Hough’s Ferry, about two miles below Loudon. They marched all that cold night, arriving at daybreak and camped.

The march and the pontoon bridge were necessary because the Yankees had burned the railroad bridge over the Tennessee River. Building the pontoon bridge had begun after dark on Nov. 13. The next morning, elements of Hood’s Division crossed first and immediately got into a skirmish with some of Burnside’s advance guard who were awaiting them on the far side of the river.

Longstreet’s artillery chief Colonel Porter Alexander later wrote: “For three days there ensued a sort of running skirmish covering the whole distance to Knoxville, about thirty miles.”

After a stormy night of wind and rain, Humphreys’ Brigade broke camp about 8 a.m. on a cold Sunday morning, Nov. 15, and crossed the river on the pontoon bridge.

With the rest of McLaws’ Division, they marched on to Eaton Crossroads on the Kingston Pike—a road that was axle-deep in mud.

Spartan Band diarist William H. Hill, clerking for the 13th regiment’s quartermaster, recorded that day, a Saturday, in clear and pleasant weather: “We moved with the baggage to McFarland’s Springs [Rossville Gap] 4 miles southeast of Chattanooga.” 

Two days later, “Our batteries opened up on the enemy and kept up a slow fire all day. The enemy replied a few times.”

It was the most concentrated fire the Rebel artillery would undertake in the Siege of Chattanooga, a Union-held railroad junction of about 3,000 residents, though sporadic shelling would follow over the course of the rest of the month.

On Oct. 8, for instance, a clear and cool Thursday, Hill wrote:

“The enemy opened fire on our batteries this evening and kept up a slow fire for 3 or 4 hours. Lt. James A. Smith of Company B [Wayne Rifles] was wounded in the leg by a piece of shell. No other damage was done.”

On Saturday morning, Oct. 10, Confederate President Jefferson Davis reviewed the troops, including Humphreys Brigade and the 13th regiment. Hill wrote “The troops received him with great enthusiasm and cheered vociferously as he passed along the line.”

McLaws, who counted himself a friend of General Bragg and therefore did not join Longstreet and the other generals in protesting his leadership, told his wife in an Oct. 14 letter that Davis “has been here for some time endeavoring to settle the difficulties among the generals…

“…to tell you the truth I do not admire him, although he is about the best man we have. He is not despotic enough for the times. His authority is not sufficiently felt to correct existing evils and his manners are cold and repelling. I hope he may be able to settle the difficulties so as to make the army homogeneous, but I doubt it very much…”

Davis rebuffed Longstreet and some other generals who wanted Bragg dismissed. Davis left Bragg in charge and Bragg promptly dismissed two of the generals opposing him and recommended that Longstreet leave the Army of Tennessee. Even the weather was contentious, McLaws wrote:

“It has been raining nearly forty eight hours without intermission, the whole country is covered with water, the creeks are impassable, and our animals are tied to their stakes without food, it being impossible to cross Chicamauga [sic] River, which is between us and the station where supplies can be obtained…”

Bragg and Davis wanted Longstreet to take his two-division First Corps north to try to dislodge Union General Ambrose Burnside and his Army of the Ohio from their occupation of Knoxville. Longstreet protested that he didn’t have enough troops to oust Burnside’s 25,000.

In that general direction, at least, lay Virginia, and according to historian Robert K. Krick, some of the First Corps’ brass bands underscored the general feeling the evening before they left on Nov. 4, by playing the popular tune Carry Me Back To Old Virginny. And Krick quoted a South Carolina infantryman who said that when they marched away “‘Longstreet’s Corps bade farewell to Bragg’s Army and the West in prolonged cheers.’”

General McLaws, meanwhile, was worried about his division as he had written his wife on Oct. 14:

“…many of my command are without tents and hundreds are without blankets or shoes. Added to these wants, the ration is not sufficient, and hundreds are sick. This seems to be a most detestable climate and the men are suffering by the change from Virginia. Where there was order and system and satisfaction and a fine country with a fine climate.”

The rains continued, such that as Hill wrote in his diary on Oct. 16 that “The roads are almost impassable…All of the bridges on the Chickamauga are washed away…”

It kept raining, off and on, and the intermittant cannonading also continued. Humphreys’ Brigade shifted its camp a few miles on Oct. 29. The reason was unspecified but perhaps was due to flooding in the rocky terrain, because they all moved back again the next day.

On Nov. 4, 1863, McLaws Division left the siege to Bragg’s army, following General Longstreet’s orders to move towards Knoxville with the two divisions he had brought from Virginia.

“The wagon trains, with all the baggage of McLaws Division left Lookout Mountain this morning,” Hill recorded, “and went to [Tyner's] Station and the Georgia R.R. The troops left the front at dark and camped at Rossville [Gap].”

The troops soon marched to Tyner’s Station on the Tennessee & Georgia Railroad where they were expected to catch a train.

Nevertheless, on Sept. 22, Mississippi Brigade commander General Humphreys dispatched thirty men from the 18th regiment to skirmish with a lingering party of the enemy near the gap at Rossville on the Georgia-Tennessee line.

Humphreys said they succeeded in capturing “9 officers and 120 men, making a total of prisoners captured by the brigade, 37 officers and 535 men.”

Generals Longstreet and Bragg, meanwhile, were arguing over what Longstreet saw as a diminishing chance to destroy the defeated Yankee forces while Bragg worried that his army had been too severely mauled for more action immediately.

According to figures compiled by the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College, Rosecrans had lost 16,170 killed, wounded, and missing out of about 62,000 engaged, while Bragg had suffered a total of 18,454 casualties out of approximately 67,000 engaged. And the Union forces were being reinforced by the Army of the Potomac and their Army of the Tennessee.

Humphreys Brigade apparently regrouped with the rest of McLaws’ Division in the vicinity of the town of Chickamauga, south of the battlefield. McLaws had come up to the battlefield from Atlanta in the  late afternoon of Sept. 20, as the battle was winding down. He had brought much of the rest of the division with him.

They were soon helping tend to the thousands of Rebel wounded, burying the dead and corralling thousands of Yankee prisoners while Longstreet, Bragg and the other generals argued about what to do next.

Spartan Band diarist William H. Hill, clerking for the regimental quartermaster, recorded more rumor than fact, though he had the overall picture and shared Longstreet’s opinion.

“Tuesday. Clear and pleasant,” he wrote on Sept 22, 1863. “A large portion of the Yankee Army has crossed the Tennessee River but they still hold Chattanooga.

“The enemy are badly defeated and if our Army had the requisite supplies and transportation to follow the Yankee Army, their defeat could easily be turned into a route [sic] and their Army destroyed.

“Some 500 more Yankee prisoners were brought in today. Our Army is in fine health and spirits and eager to pursue on after the retreating foe.”

Dr. Samuel H. Stout, Bragg’s general hospital director, was Hill’s uncle. Thus Hill knew what was afoot in the caring of the Rebel wounded.

On Sept. 23, he wrote “The wounded of our Army are coming here in large numbers. I met uncle S.H. Stout here this morning. He came here for the purpose of establishing a receiving Depot for the wounded. He brought up Surgeons, nurses, supplies, etc. He left this evening for Marietta where he has his Headquarters.”

Any progress in pursuing the enemy was likely to be slow. Longstreet’s chief of artillery, Colonel Porter Alexander summed up well in a letter home the general displeasure  at being attached to Bragg’s Army of Tennessee.

“This army is far inferior to the Army of Va. in organization & equipment & spirit, & I regret very much that I ever left the latter…” He saw “no prospect of Braggs making up his mind what to do at all…Every body—Lieut Genls even seem to feel disgusted at his incapacity….”

After a six-day delay, on Sept. 27, Humphreys Brigade and the 13th regiment finally followed the Yankee retreat north.

“All of our brigade was moved today,” Hill recorded, “to Chickamauga Station on the Western and Atlantic R.R. in Hamilton Co., Tennessee eight miles southwest of Chattanooga…. Both of the contending armies are fortifying their positions as fast as possible.”

The next day, a Monday, General Longstreet ordered McLaws’ Division to throw out skirmishers to help protect batteries installed against the enemy by Hood’s Division.

They arrived at Alexander’s Bridge on West Chickamauga Creek, on the southeastern corner of the battlefield, which was essentially a hilly forest broken only by small fields, about one in the morning on Sunday, Sept. 20, where they awaited further orders.

General Braxton Bragg had his headquarters near Alexander’s Bridge. His Army of Tennessee had been fighting off and on for weeks and had spent Saturday in a stupendous but undecided slugfest with General William Starke Rosecran’s Union Army of the Cumberland. The two armies, totaling about 65,000 troops, had fought, as independent historian Shelby Foote wrote “deep in the woods, with visibility strictly limited to [each man's] immediate vicinity.”

Foote wrote that Sunday’s sun came up looking blood red inside a hazy sky and the powder smoke of Saturday’s battle which still hung about the field. More than one man found the sun’s color ominous, portending a worse day of blood-letting. But confused attack orders from General Bragg made the morning  drag on with little action.

About 11 a.m., according to Kershaw, his light division of two brigades was sent from Alexander’s Bridge to form up in reserve behind General John Bell Hood’s Division in the center of the Confederate battle line, opposite a quarter-mile stretch of Union breastworks.

“General Hood,” Kershaw wrote later, “directed me to form line in his rear, with my center resting on the spot where I found him, which I suppose, was his center. Forming line
(Humphreys on my left) as rapidly as possible under fire of the enemy and in a thick wood, I moved, as directed, to the front.”

“Heavy firing was heard in our front,” Humphreys later wrote in his report, “when we advanced in line parallel to the Lafayette road.

“Crossing the road we found the enemy on a hill at the edge of an old field. General Kershaw at once engaged him and [eventually] drove him from his position.

The terrain was steep. It was Snodgrass Hill on Horseshoe Ridge, ultimately the key to the battlefield, and the federal troops there opposing the Rebel advance were mostly from the 21st Ohio Volunteer Infantry, a regiment whose five-shot Colt Revolving Rifles put out a tremendous volume of fire.

“At this time,” Humphreys continued, “General Bushrod R. Johnson rode up to me and requested me to move my brigade to General Kershaw’s right, as the enemy were massing that direction and threatening a flank movement.”

Kershaw continued: “…the firing on my right became very heavy, and a portion of General Hood’s division fell back along my line. I changed front almost perpendicularly to the right… This movement had just been accomplished when an officer of Brigidier-General Law’s staff informed me of the unfortunate loss of Major-General Hood.”

Hood was not lost but he was seriously wounded and so he was out of the fight. Hood had made a perfect target on horseback. Kershaw, who was commanding on foot, continued:

“The enemy occupied a skirt of wood on the farther side of the
field around Dyer’s house, his right extending into the wood beyond the field, his left crossing the Cove road. His colors were ostentatiously displayed along the lines…

“The last of Hood’s division engaged in my front had just retired when I ordered the advance…The distance across the field was about 800 yards, with a fence intervening about one-fourth of the distance. As soon as we crossed the fence, I ordered bayonets fixed, and moved at a double-quick…

“When within 100 yards of the enemy they broke, and I opened fire upon them along the whole line, but pursued them rapidly over the first line of hills to the foot of the second, when I halted under a heavy fire of artillery on the heights, sheltering the men as much as possible, and there awaited the coming of Humphreys, on my right.”

Humphreys Mississippians had problems of their own, as their commander recorded:

“I immediately moved to General Kershaw’s right and met the enemy in force, drove in his skirmishers, and found him intrenched on a hill with artillery. After engaging him and reconnoitering his position, I found it impossible to drive him from it.”

Humphreys said Longstreet ordered the Mississippi Brigade to hold its position while he sent another division to attack on the right and left. “The attack on my right was successful,” Humphreys reported, “driving the enemy from his position in great confusion.”

“My losses were heavy,” Kershaw concluded. He reported them as 65 killed and 438 wounded. He was apparently referring to his own brigade alone, because the Mississippians’ losses were much smaller.

General Humphreys’ casualty list, which accompanied his after-action report, is noted in the Official Records as “not found,” a common problem with Confederate records which were forgotten or destroyed in the lost war, particularly in its last years.

The Mississippi Brigade’s casualties, as reported by General Longstreet, were 20 killed and 132 wounded. Subsequent accounting has verified 21 killed and 111 wounded.

The 17th regiment apparently bore the brunt of the brigade’s casualties. They have been reported as 12 killed and 75 wounded. Among the dead was our 17th regiment diarist Lieutenant Robert A. Moore, who was commanding the Confederate Guards of Company G.

The 18th regiment reportedly lost 1 man killed and 9 wounded, and the brigade’s 21st regiment had 7 killed and 23 wounded.

The 13th regiment’s casualties were the smallest in the brigade, indicating that they had little share in the battle. Spartan Band diarist William H. Hill said the casualties were “…but three killed and very few wounded,” though other sources put the figures at 1 killed and 7 wounded.

The dead man apparently was Private William Gibbons, of the Newton Rifles, whose records according to independent historian Jess N. McLean showed he was “killed in action by accident,” though the accident was not explained.

McLean found only five men wounded: Private John Thomas Hogan, Private Eli L. Collins and Private John Robertson, all of the Wayne Rifles; Private Charles R. Waddle of the Kemper Legion; and 1st Lieutenant Edwin Preston Harmon, the regiment’s adjutant.

Chickamauga’s overall result, of course, was a tremendous Confederate victory, though Bragg’s army suffered terribly: Thousands of irreplaceable dead and disabled. General Longstreet alone calculated his 3-division First Corps casualties at 44 percent.

General Humphreys concluded his report with praise for “the bearing and dauntless courage of [Kershaw] and his brave Palmetto boys who have so long and so often fought side by side with the Mississippi troops. The gallant and heroic daring with which they met the shock of battle and irresistibly drove back the Federal hosts merits the highest encomium and lasting gratitude of the army and the country.”

Longstreet’s report also singled out Kershaw for distinction. Humphreys apparently was hardly a Barksdale (the hard-drinking, profane man he had replaced as brigade commander) for Longstreet gave Humphreys only an “honorable mention.”

Jo Anzalone’s story about her great great grandfather Jonathan James McDaniel, who was a private in the Winston Guards, is in the form of a novel. Ralph Poore’s “Poore Boys In Gray” is non-fiction, and it includes a third Confederate ancestor, his great grandfather William B. Poore.

William B. was originally  in the 37th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, which fought the Union invasion of Mississippi, and was later also in the 16th Mississippi Infantry Regiment.

Ralph Poore’s challenge was to write of these men who left no diaries or letters about their wartime experiences. He (as have I) found independent historian Jess N. McLean’s wartime history of the men of the 13th regiment indispensable. But Poore has also added census and other documentary evidence (including family lore) to piece together the pre- and post-war lives of William B. and his two brothers.

I’m reading the book now and plan to review it at Amazon where it’s for sale as a Kindle ebook. If you have a Kindle, try the free sample. Like me, I expect you’ll be hooked to read more. Meanwhile, you should also check out Poore’s new blog on the book.

They traveled 130 miles, crossing the Savannah River and arrived at Augusta, Georgia about 11 p.m.

They left Augusta at 1 p.m. the next day, a clear and warm Wednesday. They rode 170 miles on the Georgia State Railroad, arriving in Atlanta, at sunrise on the 17th. After a layover of a few hours, they changed trains and headed north on the Western & Atlanta Railroad, for another 120 miles, arriving at Dalton, Georgia at 2 a.m. on Friday, the 18th.

The brigade continued on, finally arriving at their unloading point, according to independent historian Shelby Foote “four miles short of Ringgold and 965 circuitous miles” from where they began in Virginia. They marched to a bivouac a few miles east of Ringgold.

They were without their division commander for, as Foote wrote in his three-volume history of the war, General McLaws “was charged with hurrying the last infantry elements northward from Atlanta.” Indeed, McLaws was trying to stop Longstreet’s Georgia troops from dispersing.

“…my room has literally been besieged by applicants for leave of absence,” McLaws wrote his wife Sept. 19 from his Atlanta hotel room, “if but for one day, for husbands or sons to visit their parents & families, all of which I have had to refuse—many men I am sorry to say have gone off without permission, all of them however to return in a day or two. So I am told and sincerely hope.”

Meanwhile, Humphreys Brigade was to be paired with General Joseph Brevard Kershaw’s single brigade, in a light division commanded by Kershaw, whose date-of-rank was older.

Hill stayed in Dalton and spent the day with his brother Gus. He finally found the 13th regiment at 5 p.m. “at the first burnt bridge at Chickamauga Creek in Catoosa County.”

17th Regiment diarist Robert A. Moore, meanwhile, had left Columbia, South Carolina, “on the mail train at 6 a.m.” on the 16th to catch up with the brigade. He got to Augusta about sunset.

“This is a very beautiful city,” Moore wrote in his diary. “The ladies at Orangeburg & other places on our route to-day were very kind.”

He arrived in Atlanta about sunrise on Thursday, catching another train at 11 a.m. northeast to Marietta, Georgia. There he was surprised at what he found.

“Have been lying over here for some time waiting for the trains from above [i.e. farther northwest],” he recorded. “This town contains a great many exiles & refugees. There are a good many sick here.”

Moore finally caught a train ride to Dalton, arriving “sometime during the night” after midnight on Friday, the 18th. He stayed there until about 10 a.m. when he caught a ride to the brigade’s bivouac near Ringgold “which is as far as the cars run.”

“Are cooking up 1 days [sic] rations,” Moore added. “Cannonading in front all evening, suppose the cavalry are skirmishing.”

That night, Humphreys Brigade, including the 13th, 17th, 18th and 21st Mississippi regiments, rested in their bivouac a  mile or so east of the railhead at Ringgold, listening to the sounds of battle in the west. Knowing they would be in it before long.

Along the way on their trip of 110 miles, the famous, middleaged Confederate diarist Mary Boykin Chestnut saw them as their flat cars passed by.

“At Kingsville I caught a glimpse of our army,” she wrote in a letter apparently begun four days earlier. ”Longstreet’s corps was going West. God bless the gallant fellows! Not one man was intoxicated; not one rude word did I hear. It was a strange sight one part of it.

“There were miles, apparently, of platform cars, soldiers rolled in their blankets, lying in rows, heads all covered, fast asleep. In their gray blankets, packed in regular order, they looked like swathed mummies.

“One man near where I sat was writing on his knee. He used his cap for a desk and he was seated on a rail. I watched him, wondering to whom that letter was to go home, no doubt. Sore hearts for him there….

“A feeling of awful depression laid hold of me. All these fine fellows were going to kill or be killed. Why? And a phrase got to beating about my head like an old song, The Unreturning Brave. When a knot of boyish, laughing, young creatures passed me, a queer thrill of sympathy shook me. Ah, I know how your home-folks feel, poor children!”

The brigade arrived in Columbia at 2 a.m. on Sept. 15, 1863. They stayed six hours, according to Spartan Band diarist William H. Hill, before the train rolled on at 8 a.m., in clear and warm weather, bound for Augusta, Georgia.

That was long enough for 17th Mississippi Regiment diarist Robert A. Moore, commanding the Confederate Guards of Company G, to be left behind.

“I with several friends proceeded from the depot to the City,” Moore recorded. “The train left us and we had to remain here all day. This is a pleasant and beautiful city. The State house when completed, will be a magnificent building. The city is handsomely laid off, the streets are wide and most beautifully shaded. Have spent the day quite agreeably.”

President Davis preferred that Lee himself go West, according to Shelby Foote, but “Lee demurred.” Davis acquiesced and by Sept 8, 1863, “the designated troops were on the move” to Northwest Georgia.

Four days later, a Saturday, the 13th Regiment “arrived at Weldon North Carolina at sunrise this morning,” Spartan Band diarist William H. Hill recorded.

Weldon was a small village on the Roanoke River and though “nothing more than a few houses and a grocery or two,” according to 17th Regiment diarist Robert A. Moore, Hill wrote that it “is the junction of several railroads.” They had traveled 63 miles from Petersburg.

Humphreys’ “Brigade left Weldon at 2 p.m.,” Hill continued, “on the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad for Raleigh,” a distance of 97 miles. They made Raleigh about 2:30 a.m. on Sept. 13, where Moore said they were not allowed to leave the depot “owing to the little difficulty…a few days since” when some Georgia troops sacked the printing plant of the Raleigh Standard newspaper.

“The people of Raleigh & vicinity,” Moore continued, “are very disloyal.”

After a delay of two hours, they rolled on, passing through Hillsboro at noon, and Greensboro at 8 p.m.

“We met with a slight accident at the Yadkin River Bridge,” Hill wrote. “One of the cars ran off the track and several of the soldiers were bruised by the jolting, but none were seriously hurt.”

Most of the troops were riding on open flat cars, around the wheels of field pieces tied down in the center. Longstreet’s aide Moxley Sorrell marveled at it, recording that:

“Never before were so many troops moved over such worn-out railways. Never before were such crazy cars—passenger, baggage, mail, coal, box, platform, all and every sort wobbling on the jumping strap-iron—used for hauling good soldiers.”

Hill wrote that they arrived at Charlotte, North Carolina, in clear and warm weather, at 8 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 14, having covered 179 miles from Raleigh.

“The ladies are out to-night to welcome us,” Moore added. “They have nice viands [meats] which is very acceptable to the souldiers. God bless the ladies.”

Crossing into South Carolina, they were again rewarded with attentive citizens who “received us very kindly,” Hill wrote, “and at several depots the soldiers were provided with a bountiful supply of provisions, gratis.”

“The waggons and teams belonging to our command are being turned over to the Government,” 17th Regiment diarist Robert A, Moore recorded.

The brigade left Hanover Junction on the cars at noon on Thursday, Sept. 10, according to Spartan Band diarist William H. Hill, bound for Richmond. Enroute, he continued, there was an accident.

“The train that carried the 13th Mississippi Regiment was run into by a heavy train containing ordnance, but as we were moving very slow, but little damage was done. Most of the soldiers saw the train before it struck and jumped off.”

Some, however, were injured. One of them was Captain Richmond C. Jamison, of the Lauderdale Zouaves, who suffered a broken arm. He was admitted to General Hospital No. 4 in Richmond.

The brigade arrived in Richmond about 4 p.m., formed and “marched from the depot through the city,” Hill recorded, “across the James River to Manchester and camped.”

They boarded another train the next morning, Friday, Sept. 11, about 9 a.m. and, after riding about twenty miles, they arrived at Petersburg just after noon.

“Petersburg is a beautiful city of about 25,000 inhabitants,” Hill wrote. “It is situated on the Appomattox River at the head of navigation. Five railroads center at this place…The principal trade of this place is tobacco manufacturers.”

“Have spent the evening very pleasantly strolling over the city,” Moore recorded. “Petersburg is a very nice and pleasant old city. We will leave South at 9 p.m.”

Heh. Well that’s one way of putting it. Read it all here and have a wonderful 2012.