Bragg and his thousands above still deemed their position impregnable. All heights were fringed with spectators of that wonderful assault. The guns in the Union works which had covered the first advance were necessarily silent. The sun shone clear on the slopes, and the advancing flags and glittering bayonets marked the rush of the swift advance. Under the fire of the sharpshooters color-bearers fell at every point of the line, only to be relieved by other hands eagerly bearing the colors forward. This deadly fire gradually drew each regiment toward its flag, and soon, far as the eye could reach along the slope, the line was transformed into countless wedge-shaped masses, with a flag at the point of each, cleaving their way upward, following the headlong push of the guards bearing the colors. The rebels, who had been hurled back from the lower line, were soon driven out of the second parallel, and thence pursued so closely to the summit that retreating Confederates and the Union flags poured over the whole extended line of works together."

Bragg hurried large bodies of men from his right to the centre. They could be seen from Orchard Knob coming in double-quick time along the summit of the ridge. Bragg and Hardee were at the centre striving to encourage their troops, urging them to stand firm

and drive back the advancing enemy, now so near the summit,― so near, that the guns which could not be sufficiently depressed, became useless. Artillery-men were seen lighting the fuses of shells and bowling these by scores down the hill. At six different points, and almost simultaneously, Sheridan's and Wood's divisions broke over the crest. Sheridan's came first to the top, near Bragg's headquarters. In a few minutes Sheridan himself was beside the guns that were fired at him and claiming them as prizes. Baird's division of the Fourteenth Corps took the works on Wood's side almost immediately afterwards. Johnson then came up on Sheridan's right. The enemy's guns were still turned upon those who were in the woods. But soon all were in flight down the eastern slope. Baird got on the ridge just in time to change front, and oppose a large body moving down from the rebel right to attack our left. After a sharp engagement that lasted till dark, he drove them beyond a high point on the north, which he at once occupied. The sun had not yet gone down, and Missionary Ridge was

ours.

Bragg afterward declared that the positions so rapidly taken were so strong that a single cordon of skirmishers ought to have defended the ridge against the whole Federal Army. Sheridan, however, had so well foreseen the success, that he sent to ask General Granger before starting, "if it was necessary to come to a halt at the foot of the hills?" This was when well on his way to the top. For a brief space the suspense was terrible, but it was soon over when the troops under Sheridan, Wood, Baird, Johnson, and others, so recklessly and fearlessly took possession of the summit. The Confederates could be seen from Orchard Knob, retiring on the road to Ringgold. Then followed the wildest confusion, as the victors gave vent to their joy. Cannon roared, men shouted, flags waved tumultuously. Sheridan did not stop for congratulations or praise. With two brigades he started eastward down the Mission Mills road, finding strongly posted on a second hill, the enemy's rear. They made a stout resistance, but by a sudden flank movement, he drove them from the heights and captured two guns and many prisoners. At 7 o'clock General Granger sent word to General Thomas that by a bold dash at Chickamauga Crossing, he might cut off a large number of the enemy. It was midnight before the guides could be found, and then General Sheridan again put his tired. men in motion. He reached the creek just as the rear guard of the enemy was crossing, and pressed it so closely that it burned the pontoon bridge before all the troops were over. Sheridan captured several

hundred prisoners, a large number of wagons, together with caissons, artillery, ammunition, and many small arms.

In the battle of Missionary Ridge Sheridan's and Wood's divisions took thirty-one pieces of artillery, several thousand small arms, and 3,Soo prisoners. But in that one hour of assault they lost 2,337 of their brave men. The fire along the rebel line was terrific while the conflict raged, still the damage done was comparatively small. According to Boynton: "From the first it had been an advance almost wholly without firing. Each successive line of works and the summit were carried with the bayonet. In an hour from the sounding of the signal guns Bragg had been swept from these dominating positions of a great natural fortress, strengthened by every engineering art; and the sun, which, at its rising, lighted up that one flag at Lookout, rested, at its setting, on the countless banners which a storming army had planted along the crest of Missionary Ridge.

"Throughout this movement Sheridan was conspicuous, followed by his staff. As ever, he was splendidly mounted, and could be easily followed by all eyes as he dashed across the plain and rode with his lines to and over the crest, and without a halt hurled forward upon the retreating enemy."

General Grant says:

*

"To Sheridan's prompt movement [after

the ridge was captured] the Army of the Cumberland and the nation are indebted for the bulk of the capture of prisoners, artillery, and small arms that day. But for his prompt pursuit, so much in this way would not have been accomplished."

Hardee's command, of all the rebel army, was still unbroken. The Comte de Paris says of this pursuit of Sheridan's, that Hardee had "kept Sherman in check all day by his powerful artillery fire. At night he was congratulating himself on success when he heard of Breckenridge's disaster. Out of ten brigades only two, those which formed Anderson's right, maintained their ranks; with these our right flank was menaced. But Baird's arrival with Vandever's and Phelps' brigades obliged Anderson to fall back and seek support near Hardee."

Taking with him Cheatham's division, Hardee moved rapidly to the assistance of Anderson, arriving when the latter was falling back. This opportune reinforcement temporarily checked our progress as we advanced toward the north, following the summit of Missionary Ridge. Cheatham's division deployed on this crest, and for a moment resumed the offensive. It then retired step by step till it reached a point which

• Century. Article from Memoirs, November, 1885.

it was able to hold till nightfall. Bragg gave the order to fall back during the night. It was then that Sheridan in hot pursuit descended the slope of Missionary Ridge with Wagner's and Harker's brigades placed on the right and left of the Chickamauga road. Night came, but Sheridan brought his reserves into action despite the darkness and the difficulties of the ground. While Harker engaged the enemy in the front, Wagner with two regiments scaled a steep acclivity, and endeavored to turn Bate's right flank. As the full moon slowly rose behind the dark crest of the hill, Sheridan and his companions could see depicted against the sky the profile of Wagner's soldiers who just then had reached the acclivity's summit. It was the signal for a fresh attack, before which General Bate promptly fell back. This commander has since been governor of Tennessee, and is now a United States Senator. Sheridan moved rapidly, to prevent the destruction of the bridges over the Chickamauga, but at 2 A. M. he reached the stream only to find them in ruins.

Again, among the soldiers growing in public honor and national recognition, Sheridan was one of the foremost, and also the youngest. He was generally acclaimed, and received special mention in all orders and reports. It was a complete victory. The Union army was, in round figures, sixty thousand strong; the rebel nearly the same, with the added advantage of its strong positions. According to Grant, Bragg's mistakes were seen in sending away his ablest corps commander, Longstreet, with 20,000 men; in weakening himself by sending a division away the night before, and finally in massing so large a proportion of his troops below, and not in a position practically impregnable if it had been well occupied. The result was to put Bragg in full retreat southward. Sherman was sent to relieve Burnside, with two corps. Longstreet abandoned the siege without a fight. The Central South remained entirely in our hands. Sheridan remained through the winter and early spring with the Army of the Cumberland, under General Thomas, at Chattanooga, and was reluctant to leave it for the East, having been offered command of his old corps, and expecting to take part with it in the already outlined movement against Atlanta.

CHAPTER XI.

A BATTLE IN THE SNOW.

COLE'S CAVALRY HAVE A FIGHT-MOSEBY ATTACKS AND IS BEATEN OFF-A BATTLE TO THE DEATH" FIRE THE TENTS AND SHOOT BY THE LIGHT SUFFERING OF THE MEN-THE DEATH OF YOUNG PAXTON.

SHERIDAN is about to occupy a larger field. In it, he will fill the public eye, and make the general tongue wag in wonder at the deeds performed. No commander, however, accomplishes great things without finding a quality kindred to himself in the officers who carry forward his designs, and in the men by whose courage and devotion the execution is alone made possible. The stuff for heroes was to be found in the men of the Potomac Army. Even Sheridan could not have made its troopers the fighting centaurs they became, in that last marvelous year of civil strife, unless, indeed, they were made of that splendid human material whose mould is never broken, even if it be sometimes weakened. In evidence of this the reader will find the story of "Cole's Cavalry" worth reading. They were a famous fragment of the troopers who, under his command, like mighty harvesters with their flails, pounded the armed enemies of the Union into fragments. The cavalry under Sheridan was Grant's flail. And here are incidents connected with some of the material whereof it was made:

One rather sultry day in September, 1862, when the clouds of war were black, a second lieutenant of cavalry sat upon the top of a rail fence at Paxton's cross-roads, in Loudoun County, Virginia. He was covered with the dust and smoke of a fight that his battalion was having with Moseby's command a few miles up the road. He had come back to the point where this scene opens, in charge of five severely wounded men, a partial result of the skirmish. They were lying back of him under an apple tree, one of them, his own brother, shot through the body, and believed to be mortally wounded. The other four were not bound to him by the tie of kindred, but they were very near to him, for not only had they been his playmates in childhood, but the companions of his later years, and ever since the beginning of war his closest