Transcriber's note
Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer errors have been changed and are listedat the end. All other inconsistencies are as in the original.
In this version there are maps. Clicking on these images will show yoularger versions.
CHATTANOOGA
AND
CHICKAMAUGA.
REPRINT OF
Gen. H. V. BOYNTON'S LETTERS
TO THE
Cincinnati Commercial Gazette,
AUGUST, 1888.
Second Edition, with Corrections.
WASHINGTON, D. C.:
GEO. R. GRAY, PRINTER.
1891.
PREFACE.
Comrades of the Society of the Army of the Cumberland:
When General H. V. Boynton's letters recently appeared in the CincinnatiCommercial Gazette, so vividly portraying the achievements and heroismof the Army of the Cumberland in its campaign for the possession ofChattanooga, including the inevitable incident thereto, the battle ofChickamauga, I thought how agreeable it would be for each member of thesociety to have a copy for perusal at our approaching reunion on thetwenty-fifth anniversary of Chickamauga.
Accordingly I asked General Boynton's permission to print these lettersin pamphlet form, as advance sheets of any volume in which he maydetermine to put them with other matter. To this he most cheerfullyassented in the following letter:
My Dear General: You are welcome to the Chickamauga letters forany use you choose to make of them. While the salient featuresof both days' battle are easily understood, the details ofmovements by brigades are in many cases intricate. For thisreason various errors may have been made in the text. If thosewho observe them will take the trouble to correct them beforethe public, they would thus assist in establishing the correcthistory of a battle in which the Army of the Cumberland shouldtake great pride.
General W. S. Rosecrans.
With this explanation, the letters are given in the order of theirrespective dates.
Washington, August 3. [Special.]—In two preliminary letters aboutChickamauga the attempt was made to describe the field as it appearsto-day, and to present some of the scenes of the battle which camerushing back over the plains of memory with a power suggestive of thedeparted legions that once clothed these farms, forests, and ridges withthe terrible magnificence of battle.
In a sense, to write of Chickamauga is to try to excite interest in asubject which far too many regard as worn; but to the veterans whofought there it will never be a threadbare story. For that generationwhich has been born and has come to manhood since Chattanooga was won bythe Union arms, there is no campaign which can be studied with greaterprofit, or which will more richly repay the reader. History has not yetdone justice to Chickamauga, but its verdict is sure. Many of themisconceptions of the days following the battle still exist in thepopular mind. It may be years before they are cleared away; buteventually the Chickamauga campaign will stand in the history of our waras