to turn aside toward Trenton, to make the enemy believe we were going to turn Braggs left by pretty much the same road Rosecrans had followed; but with the other three divisions I followed the main road, via the Big Trestle at Whitesides, and reached General Hooker’s headquarters, just above Wauhatchee, on the 20th; my troops strung all the way back to Bridgeport.  It was on this occasion that the Fifteenth Corps gained its peculiar badge:  as the men were trudging along the deeply-cut, muddy road, of a cold, drizzly day, one of our Western soldiers left his ranks and joined a party of the Twelfth Corps at their camp-fire.  They got into conversation, the Twelfth-Corps men asking what troops we were, etc., etc.  In turn, our fellow (who had never seen a corps-badge, and noticed that every thing was marked with a star) asked if they were all brigadier-generals.  Of course they were not, but the star was their corps-badge, and every wagon, tent, hat, etc., had its star.  Then the Twelfth-Corps men inquired what corps he belonged to, and he answered, “The Fifteenth Corps.”  “What is your badge?” “Why,” said he (and he was an Irishman), suiting the action to the word, “forty rounds in the cartridge-box, and twenty in the pocket.”  At that time Blair commanded the corps; but Logan succeeded soon after, and, hearing the story, adopted the cartridge-box and forty rounds as the corps-badge.

The condition of the roads was such, and the bridge at Brown’s so frail, that it was not until the 23d that we got three of my divisions behind the hills near the point indicated above Chattanooga for crossing the river.  It was determined to begin the battle with these three divisions, aided by a division of Thomas’s army, commanded by General Jeff.  C. Davis, that was already near that point.  All the details of the battle of Chattanooga, so far as I was a witness, are so fully given in my official report herewith, that I need add nothing to it.  It was a magnificent battle in its conception, in its execution, and in its glorious results; hastened somewhat by the supposed danger of Burnside, at Knoxville, yet so completely successful, that nothing is left for cavil or fault-finding.  The first day was lowering and overcast, favoring us greatly, because we wanted to be concealed from Bragg, whose position on the mountain-tops completely overlooked us and our movements.  The second day was beautifully clear, and many a time, in the midst of its carnage and noise, I could not help stopping to look across that vast field of battle, to admire its sublimity.

The object of General Hooker’s and my attacks on the extreme flanks of Bragg’s position was, to disturb him to such an extent, that he would naturally detach from his centre as against us, so that Thomas’s army could break through his centre.  The whole plan succeeded admirably; but it was not until after dark that I learned the complete success at the centre, and received General Grant’s orders to pursue on the north side of Chickamauga Creek: