Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 12.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

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[39] After the smoke cleared away, that solid body was no where visible—only patches of men scattered all over the field, and running to the rear as fast as their legs could carry them.

But to return.

Such partial victories, however brilliant, could not alas! retrieve the completeness of our rout. When the remnants of the Army of Tennessee had reached Dalton, Georgia, all order had well-nigh vanished. The men for the most part, cowed and disheartened, both by the humiliating rout they had undergone, and the sufferings they were enduring, began to desert in large numbers. General Bragg himself, left us soon after we reached Dalton. Whilst on the ridge he had done his best to rally the men, but he found his voice unheeded. It was then he discovered how little were the love and respect his soldiers bore him. He was forced to see all personal example entirely unnoticed, all threats and entreaties entirely disregarded, whilst the men shorn of that prestige which had always been theirs, and of that sturdy selfconfidence which had served to win all former victories, worn out with two months famine, privation and dissensions, execrated and denounced him as the author of all their misfortunes.

It was in this state of mind that we arrived at Dalton. Our sufferings were such as we had never known before, for the winter was upon us with all its rigor. And conscious of having inflicted one of the greatest calamities of the war, upon the cause we fought for, and of acting as a body, ignominiously, and yet feeling that we were not responsible for the result of affairs, and were not deserving of the stigma which the whole country would certainly put upon us, we were controlled by a feeling of reckless despair, when Johnston arrived.