AMERICA.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume II, Issue 70, 30 December 1863, Page 1 (Supplement)

AMERICA.

BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA.

A great battle was fought on the 19th and 20th of September, in front of Chattanooga, on the Chickamauga creek, disastrous to the Federal army. The result of the fighting on the 19th was not decisive. The Federals held their ground, but part of their army had been " badly shattered," and the day " could hardly be claimed as a triumph of the Union arms." It was at this crisis the first telegrams stopped, with the alarming announcement of a " substantial victory." During the night of the 1 Oth the Federal position had to be changed again, aud on the 20th the Confederates repeated the tactics of the previous day. First attacking the left of the line and pushing it back, the Southerners threw all their force on the Federal centre, which had been " weakened to the extent of one-third." It could not sustain the shock. 44 The regiments began to spread out like a fan, wider and wider, till at last they were broken into fragments." The breaks caused by the shiftings of divisions from one point of the line to another " were so promptly perceived and turned to advantage" by the Confederates 44 that they proved fatal and caused the loss of the day." The Federal line, after being thus broken, could not again be formed. At this point of time the disorder began. Streams of demoralised, uncontrollable troops, flying to the rear, were all that remained of a large portion of the army. Four divisions were thus broken and dispersed, only one retiring in tolerable order. All afterwards was the confusion of a route, " crowds of stragglers in mob-like disorder making good speed towards Chattanooga " A partial rally was made, and General Thomas was enabled so far to check the pursuit as to save the Northern army from total destruction. The whole incidents of the two days, it must be admitted, are very candidly summed up by an American narrator, —" While the struggle of the first day ended in a drawn battle that of the second resulted in a disastrous defeat." Bad formation of the line of battle, bad tactics on the field, and the absence of some commanders at the most critical period of the fight, are alleged as the causes of the disaster. Two seem to have disappeared, though nothing is said of their having been wounded. Rosencrans attributes the loss of the battle to M'Cook's disobedience of orders. The Indian name of the battlefield (Chickamauga) means the " Stream of Death." The great losses on both sides give the name a new and terrible fitness. But the oft-repeated tale of carnage makes small impression on the American mind, even, though the difficulty [of filling the thinned ranks is becoming every day more evident.