"Lee & Gordon's Mill"

With Sabre and Scalpel. The Autobiography of a Soldier and Surgeon
by John AllanWyeth
New York, Harper & Brothers, 1914. (Available Online)
Pg 245 - 248

Early on Sunday, September 20th, some of the Federal long-range guns began to land bullets in our bivouac, and one or two horses were hit. The firing came from a log cabin about four hundred yards across a field which was now grown up with a rich crop of high ragweed. Some ten of us volunteered to drive them out or capture them, and I was placed in command of the detachment. In order to get into the field of weeds through which it was necessary to crawl to keep out of sight, we made a slight detour and came up behind a dense copse of bushes, where we loosened a lower rail and crawled through the fence without being seen. As it was not safe to try to rush the cabin from the front, we made our way cautiously to the back of the barns or stables of a farm-house two or three hundred yards from the nest of the sharp-shooters in the log cabin. It was still very early, for as I came to the open back door of the farm-house I saw a lady and two children at the breakfast-table. When she saw me she started up and, recognizing my gray jacket, in evident alarm exclaimed, "The Yankee pickets are in the road by our front gate." To my inquiry of how many there were and how long they had been there she said a company of cavalry came the day before and left some of their men on picket. I crept along the wall of the house, peeped cautiously around the comer, but saw no one, and told her she must have been mistaken. She assured me she had seen them since daylight. I then signaled the others to come up, and as we reached the road we found plenty of fresh tracks made since the dew had fallen. There was no mistaking these footprints, for they were made by the square-toed regulation shoe of the United States army.

We now quickly formed in a line about ten feet apart and ran through the woods toward the cabin, taking it on the flank and rear. Not a word was spoken as we rushed ahead with our guns cocked and ready. I expected every moment to see gun-smoke jet out of the cracks in the cabin; but when we reached it it was empty. A fresh fire was burning, and we found some blankets, cooking-utensils--among these a coffee-pot, for which we had little use--and a small sack of salt and other plunder, which the Federals had hurriedly abandoned. General Martin, who was watching us through his field-glasses, met us half-way across the field as we were returning, and upon my report ordered the ever-reliable Lieutenant John Gibson to ride out with some twenty men and see what was up. He came back within an hour with information which caused General Wheeler to move his whole command some two miles or more in great haste to Glass's Mill on the Chickamauga, about a mile from Crawfish Spring. We had hardly reached this spot when we struck a big body of their cavalry, and a lively fight was precipitated. One of our batteries went immediately into action just in front of our position, and we were posted to guard it. The Federal guns about five hundred yards away soon got the range and threw a lot of shrapnel, which kept us on the anxious seat for fully an hour, for they frequently burst up in front of us, and the fragments came whirring down our way. One piece about two inches long struck the ground right by my horse, and I dismounted and picked it up and sent it home to my mother as a souvenir. Had we been fifty yards farther back we would have been fully protected behind the crest of the ridge on which we were formed. After what seemed an interminable time we were ordered back this far, and a detail was made to parch corn. Here two flour-biscuits and a small piece of bacon were issued to each man. For the three days of this battle no other ration than this was given to our command--we were subsisting on parched corn. After about two hours of fighting the Eighth Texas got on the flank of the Federals and gave them a wild chase in the direction of Lee & Gordon's Mill, in which we all joined.

In this engagement a lot of prisoners were captured, and several of our dead and wounded were brought in on the horses, as we carried no stretchers and an ambulance was unknown. I saw one body held across the lap and legs of one of the Texas troopers, the limp arms and legs dangling nearly to the ground. I was told it was his brother, who had been instantly killed. That and another scene I witnessed at Glass's Mill still remain vividly in mind. A captured Union cavalry officer who had been shot through the bones of one foot came in limping along with the other dismounted captives. I was standing close by when a ranger who had been one of the captors said to him, "I want your boots." The officer had on a magnificent pair of Wellingtons, and, as it was useless to say no, he sat down and held up the sound foot while the Texan pulled that boot off and tried it on. As it was a fit, he motioned for the other. When the wounded man asked him if he wouldn't split it so it could be pulled off without hurting, the ranger simply pulled it off vi et armis, remarking, "You reckon I'm going to spoil that boot?" It was a pretty rough experience, and my sympathies were with the unfortunate prisoner. Earlier in the war this incident would not have been possible, but men had become callous and indifferent, and then the necessities of the Southern troops, half starved and poorly clad as they were, justified to some extent the wholesale appropriation of all the belongings of their prisoners.

The dead on the field were practically all stripped before burial, leaving only a single undergarment on. Right after the Chickamauga battle I was detailed to gather up guns and other wreckage on the field, and the dead Federals were scattered everywhere, in some places very thick. I counted seven who had fallen in one pile, and I recall but one that had not been stripped of all outer clothing; yet not one of all these dead men but had some covering left for the sake of modesty.