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I rambled about a good deal over the field where we were, and the havoc was frightful. The woods were full of branches and tops of trees, like a heavy storm had just passed through. Some of the trees more than a foot through were cut down by cannon balls. The underbrush was shorn off to the ground.
One man was squatted by the side of a tree with his gun up, resting against it, cocked and aimed toward the log breastworks about fifty yards off. His head was leaning forward, he was shot through about the heart. He was a Confederate. Another was lying on his face with one hand grasping his gun just below the muzzle and the rammer in his other hand. Another lay on his back with both hands clinched in his long, black whiskers, all clotted with blood. He was shot in the mouth, and I think was a Federal lieutenant. About five feet off was another, with his head gone.
I came across a soldier leaning down over one that was dead, and as I approached him he was in the act of spreading a handkerchief over the dead man's face. He looked up at me and said "This is my captain, and a good one too. I want to send him home if I can."
I saw a good many looking over the dead for a comrade, and when identified would straighten him out, put a knapsack or chunk under his head, and lay a hat on his face; then perhaps cast their eyes up and around for some peculiar tree or cliff or hill by which to identify the spot in coming back.
- Captain H.H. Dillard of the 16th Tennessee Infantry, walking over the battlefield at Chickamauga after Federal forces retreated from Horseshoe Ridge.
One man was squatted by the side of a tree with his gun up, resting against it, cocked and aimed toward the log breastworks about fifty yards off. His head was leaning forward, he was shot through about the heart. He was a Confederate. Another was lying on his face with one hand grasping his gun just below the muzzle and the rammer in his other hand. Another lay on his back with both hands clinched in his long, black whiskers, all clotted with blood. He was shot in the mouth, and I think was a Federal lieutenant. About five feet off was another, with his head gone.
I came across a soldier leaning down over one that was dead, and as I approached him he was in the act of spreading a handkerchief over the dead man's face. He looked up at me and said "This is my captain, and a good one too. I want to send him home if I can."
I saw a good many looking over the dead for a comrade, and when identified would straighten him out, put a knapsack or chunk under his head, and lay a hat on his face; then perhaps cast their eyes up and around for some peculiar tree or cliff or hill by which to identify the spot in coming back.
- Captain H.H. Dillard of the 16th Tennessee Infantry, walking over the battlefield at Chickamauga after Federal forces retreated from Horseshoe Ridge.