It was not to be a mere change of camp, evidently, but a final
adieu to the locality and a dash over the Tennessee--if we could make
it.
While some of us were yet sipping our hot coffee, saved out of the
general wreck in packing up, the bugles called "the assembly," and in
ten minutes the brigade was stretching out at a lively rate on the road
the aide had taken. At the river was the detail of mechanics who had
been at work on the scow in the bayou. Their task had been suddenly
abandoned. It was useless: the enemy had left the opposite bank and
fallen back from Chattanooga. The crossing was made, and the brigade
struck out into the country toward Ringgold and the Georgia line. We
belonged to Palmer's division of Crittenden's corps, but we had no idea
where our comrades were. Passing over the uninviting country, and by the
cornfields wasted by Bragg's men that we might not gather the grain, the
brigade fell in with the rest of its division near a lonely grist-mill
at a junction of cross-roads, where a battalion of Southern cavalry had
just galloped in upon an infantry regiment lying under its stacked arms
by the wayside. So the enemy was not entirely out of the country, it
appeared. Still, we saw nothing of him, save in a trifling skirmish the
next day on the road from Ringgold to Gordon's Mills. Near this place,
however, we fell in with General Thomas J. Wood, who had had a little
encounter which convinced him that Bragg's infantry was in force near
by.
Pages:
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163