Early on an autumn day, when the mountains and valleys were clothed in golden yellow, the warriors of the dissenting factions met along the banks of the little stream, and across its turbid waters waged a bitter battle from early morn until the “sun was dipping behind the palisades of Look-Out Mountain”—­no quarters given and none asked.  It was a war of extermination.  The blood of friend and foe mingled in the stream until its waters were said to be red with the life-blood of the struggling combatants.  At the close of the fierce combat the few that survived made a peace and covenant, and then and there declared that for all time the sluggish stream should be called Chickamauga, the “river of blood.”  Such is the legend of the great battleground and the river from whence it takes its name.

General Buckner had come down from East Tennessee with his three divisions, Stewart’s, Hindman’s, and Preston’s, and had joined General Bragg some time before our arrival, making General Bragg’s organized army forty-three thousand eight hundred and sixty-six strong.  He was further reinforced by eleven thousand five hundred from General Joseph E. Johnston’s army in Mississippi and five thousand under General Longstreet, making a total of sixty thousand three hundred and thirty-six, less casualties of the 18th and 19th of one thousand one hundred and twenty-four; so as to numbers on the morning of the 20th, Bragg had of all arms fifty-nine thousand two hundred and forty-two; while the Federal commander claimed only sixty thousand three hundred and sixty six, but at least five thousand more on detached duty and non-combatants, such as surgeons, commissaries, quartermasters, teamsters, guards, etc.  Bragg’s rolls covered all men in his army.  Rosecrans was far superior in artillery and cavalry, as all of the batteries belonging to Longstreet’s corps, or that were to attend him in the campaign of the West, were far back in South Carolina, making what speed possible on the clumsy and cumbersome railroads of that day.  So it was with Wofford’s and Bryan’s Brigades, of McLaw’s Division, Jenkins’ and one of Hood’s, as well as all of the subsistence and ordnance trains.  The artillery assigned to General Longstreet by General Lee consisted of Ashland’s and Bedford’s (Virginia), Brooks’ (South Carolina), and Madison’s (Louisiana) batteries of light artillery, and two Virginia batteries of position, all under the command of Colonel Alexander.

As for transportation, the soldiers carried all they possessed on their backs, with four days of cooked rations all the time.  Generally one or two pieces of light utensils were carried by each company, in which all the bread and meat were cooked during the night.

Our quartermasters gathered up what they could of teams and wagons from the refuse of Bragg’s trains to make a semblance of subsistence transportation barely sufficient to gather in the supplies.  It was here that the abilities of our chiefs of quartermaster and commissary departments were tested to the utmost.  Captains Peck and Shell, of our brigade, showed themselves equal to the occasion, and Captain Lowrance, of the Subsistence Department, could always be able to furnish us with plenty of corn meal from the surrounding country.