Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

[137] Bragg had likewise made preparations for a vigorous attack at dawn. Longstreet arrived at eleven o'clock in the evening, and immediately received his instructions as commander of the left, where his own troops were stationed; and Polk was ordered to assail the Nationals at daylight, and “to take up the attack in succession rapidly to the left. The left wing was to await the attack by the right, and take it up promptly when made, and the whole line was then to be pushed vigorously and persistently against the enemy throughout its extent.” ¹

The battle was to have been opened at dawn by Hill, whose corps was to fall upon the National left. Before that hour Bragg was in the saddle, and he waited with great impatience for the sound of battle when day dawned, for he had heard the noise of axes and the falling of trees during the night, indicating that his adversary was intrenching. But Polk was silent, and when Bragg rode to the right, he found that the reverend leader had not even prepared for the movement. He renewed his orders, but another golden opportunity for Bragg was passed.² At the hour appointed for the attack, Thomas was comparatively weak, for Negley had not yet joined him, and Rosecrans, riding along his lines at dawn, had found his troops on his left not so concentrated as he wished. The defect was speedily remedied. Under cover of a dense fog that shrouded the whole country, re-enforcements joined Thomas, until nearly one-half of the Army of the Cumberland present was under his command, behind breastworks of logs, rails, and earth, which his industrious troops had piled in the space of a few hours.

When the fog lifted, between eight and nine o'clock,

Sept. 20, 1863.

Breckinridge, of Hill's corps, with fresh divisions, was found facing and partly overlapping Thomas's extreme left, held by Baird, and flanking it. Breckinridge instantly advanced, and, fighting desperately, pushed across the Rossville road toward a prescribed position. Other divisions in succession toward Bragg's center followed this example, the intention being to carry out the original plan of interposing an overwhelming force between Rosecrans and Chattanooga, which Thomas had prevented the previous day. At this moment Beatty's brigade of Negley's division, moving from the National right center, went into action by the side of Baird, on the extreme left, and checked Breckinridge's advance; but both he and Baird were outnumbered, and the latter began to lose ground. Several regiments of Johnson's division were pushed forward to his support, and these, with Vandever's brigade of Brannan's division, and a part of Stanley's, of Wood's division, so strengthened the wavering line, that Breckinridge was thrown back in much disorder, with the loss of Generals Helm³ and Deshler, killed, his chief of artillery (Major Graves) mortally wounded, and General D. Adams severely so. He rallied his troops on a commanding ridge, with his guns well posted, and then fought desperately, re-enforced from time to time by the divisions of Walker, Cheatham, Cleburne, and Stewart. Fearfully the battle raged at that point, with varying fortunes for the combatants. The carnage on both sides was frightful, and for awhile