Early on the morning of September 19th, 1863, the Army of the Cumberland began its race for Chattanooga, where that army might have been and should have been safely placed ten days before that time. In that race the Army of the Cumberland was attacked in flank by Bragg's army. The Army of the Cumberland would repulse the enemy at some point, and immediately move on toward Chattanooga. All day long it was a continuous race. At about 10 a.m. my regiment was ordered by General Rosecrans to take position and rest in a field southeast of Widow Glenn's house, and putting my regiment in the field, I sent out a skirmish line into the woods in my front, and captured a prisoner from the Confederate skirmish line that was found west of the La Fayette road. The prisoner was brought immediately to me. He was a Virginia boy, badly frightened at first, but he soon told me that he belonged to Longstreet's corps from the Virginia Army, and detailed to me how he came by cars, where they disembarked, and how they marched to the battlefield. I took the prisoner, the first one captured from Longstreet's corps, to General Rosecrans at his then headquarters at Widow Glenn's house, and told him that I had a prisoner from Longstreet's corps, when Rosecrans flew into a passion, denounced the little boy as a liar, declared that Longstreet's corps was not there. The little boy prisoner was so frightened that he would not speak a word. In sorrow I turned away, and joined my regiment. Rosecrans found out that Longstreet's corps was there.
Shortly I was ordered to march rapidly toward Chattanooga, and I suppose a mile or so northeast of Widow Glenn's house I met General Joseph J. Reynolds, who told me that King's Brigade of his division was broken by the enemy, and ordered me to dismount and try to stop the enemy that was pouring through our lines, which I did, and the Ninety-Second, with their Spencer rifles, easily, on three occasions, drove the enemy back in its immediate front as they emerged from the woods east of the La Fayette road; but they swarmed by my right flank in great force, and I was compelled to withdraw. I found thousands of Union troops in disorder floating off through the woods toward Chattanooga, but I sought and found the left flank of the Confederate troops that had broken through our lines, and reported to Colonel Wilder at Vinings, and was ordered by him to put my regiment in line dismounted on the left of his brigade.
During the night of the 19th of September Rosecrans withdrew McCook's corps on his right, and formed a new line on the low hills southwest of Widow Glenn's, Wilder withdrawing his brigade and forming a new line south of McCook's corps; but my regiment mounted before daylight covered the entire front of Wilder's Brigade, ordered to fall back to the new line when pressed by the enemy.
Daylight came; with it white flags in our front where the Confederates were burying their dead. An hour after daylight I discovered a heavy column of the enemy, in column of companies doubled on the center, slowly and silently creeping past my left flank toward the left flank of McCook's corps. I repeatedly sent him information of the approach of that heavy column of the enemy, but he testily declared that there was no truth in it, and refused to send a skirmish line of his own, that he might easily have done, and found out for himself. When Longstreet's corps sprang with a yell upon the left flank of McCook's corps, the line in my front advanced, and I retired to join Wilder as ordered. McCook's corps was wiped off the field without any attempt at real resistance, and floated off from the battlefield like flecks of foam upon a river. His artillerymen cut the traces, and leaving the guns, rode away toward Chattanooga. The rout of McCook's corps was complete. I found Wilder, who proposed to charge through Longstreet's corps with his brigade, and join Thomas on Snodgrass Hill, but Charles A. Dana, Assistant Secretary of War, rode up and ordered Wilder not to make the charge, declaring the battle was lost, and ordering Wilder to Chattanooga by the Dry Valley road. Lingering long on the field, taking up the Union hospitals at Crawfish Spring, and taking with him the abandoned artillery of McCook's corps, Wilder sullenly retired, followed by a light force of the Confederate cavalry.
The heroic conduct of Thomas on Snodgrass Hill saved the Army of the Cumberland from total rout and defeat, but that gallant soldier with his jaded but brave troops sought safety in flight to Rossville Gap under the cover of the friendly darkness of the night.
The useless battle had been fought, the useless sacrifice of thousands of brave men of the Army of the Cumberland had been made, and the shattered remnant of the Army of the Cumberland in Chattanooga, where the entire army might have been and ought to have been on the evening of September 10th, 1863, without the loss of a man or a wheel.