Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1895 — TO AMERICAN HEROES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TO AMERICAN HEROES

DEDICATION OF MONUMENTS ON CHICKAMAUGA'S FIELD. Moat Brilliant and Stirring Demonstration of Patriotism Bince the Civil War—South Wild with Enthusiasm—Park Has No Counterpart. After Thirty-two Years. Patriotism and pleasure held sway in the South. From the Grand Army encampment at Louisville to the Chiekamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park was a solid streak of red, white and blue. Everywhere aloug the route the hundreds of thousands of peopi* joined the scores of thousands of visitors iu one grand burst of patriotic enthusiasm. Chattanooga, the pretty little Southern Tennessee city, caught the spirit, and for the five days devoted to the dedicatory exercises on the famous field of Chickamauga she was gay with fipwers and bunting. The South and its people turned everything loose and went in for a period of festivities and freedom, with the dual desire to celebrate the dedication and to honor the stars and stripes. In short, it was a holiday for nil the people and they went into It with an enthusiasm that insured great enjoyment. But the exercises were not without a serious side. The dedication of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga Military Park upon the thirty-second anniversary of tho battle of Chicknmaugo, and the accompanying State nnd society celebrations.

constitute the most brilliant and stirring pageant and patriotic demonstration the country has seen since the civil war. It took place by an act of Congress, and under the direction of Government officials. It wns national in character, and included both Union and Confederate characters and organizations. Its object Is the fostering of f.rieudly and reunion sentiments. The patriotism of the nation was assembled on two adjacent battlefields, one of which saw a victory for the Confederates, and the other a victory for the Union arms. As the dedication was a national event and as the ceremonies and proceedings were under the immediate direction of Secretary of War Lamont nearly every prominent official of the United States Government and of the different States were present. Among them were the Cabinet, the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Vice President and twenty United States Senators, the Speaker of the House and thirty Representatives, Lieut. Gen. Schofield anil Maj. Gen. Miles, accompanied by a large body of regular troops and Admiral Gherardi and Admiral Walker, of the United States Navy. There was a large attendance of patriotic military organizations, some of which purposely arranged to hold their regular annual celebration at the same time and place as*the dedication exercises. First nmong these was the Society of the Army of the Cumberland, which celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary. The Army of the Cumberland entertained as its special guests at Chattanooga the Society of the Army of the Tennessee,

which held its twenty-seventh aunual reunion Sept. 16 and 17, at Cincinnati. The Confederate Society of the Army of the Tennessee was also present in force. A large delegation went from the annual encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic at Louisville. It is estimated that 75 per cent, of the veterans found their way to Chattanooga. There was also a large attendance of the Sons of Veterans. Gen. W. S. Rosecrans was ill in California, and sent word that he could not come. Gen. James Longstreet, of the Confederate army, attended upon condition that he be not asked to participate in the exercises. He was accompanied by Gen. A. P. Stewart, one of his brigade commanders in the battle. The dedication exercises- proper occupied the first two days, and opened and closed with a salute <ff 100 guns. The official program was as follows: First day—Grand parade of veterans, North and South. Dedication of the Chiekamauga section of the park. Exercises at Snodgrass Hill, opened by Secretary Lamont Orators, Gen. John M. Palmer of Illinois (Union) and Gen. John B. Gordon of Georgia (Confederate). Eight p. m., at Chnttanooga, exercises conducted by tlip Society of the Army of the Tennessee (Union) and the Army of Tennessee (Confederate), Gen; Granville M. Dodge presiding. Orators, Gen. O. O.

Howard, U. S. A., and Gen. Joseph Wheeler of Alabama. Second day—Dedication of the Chattanooga section oT the- park, exercises beginning at nooh at Chattanooga. Orators, Gen. Charles H. Grosyenor of Ohio (Union) and Gen. William H. Bate of Tennessee (Confederate). Eight p. m., at Chattanooga, exercises conducted by veterans of the Army of the Potomac (Union) and the Army of Northern Virginia (Confederate), Gen. Edward C. Walthall of Mississippi presiding. Orators, Gen. Orlando Smith and Gov. William G. Oates of Alabama. The dedication ceremonies at the park were under the direction of Secretary of War Lumont. Bishop Hunt of Tennessee delivered the invocation and Bishop Keane of Richfuond gave the benediction. Speeches were made by* Gen. Warner on behalf of the committee, and by Gen. Dodge for the Army of the Tennessee. The Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park is the graudest reservation of its kind in the world, and in many respects the most comprehensive and extended military object lesson. The United States Government has spent on it $750,000 since its establishment was authorized in 1890, and various State Governments about ssoo,ooo.more, making a total of $1,250,000. The plan was to restore the old lines of the Chickamnuga and Chattanooga campaigns (Sept. 19-20 and Nov. 24-25,1803,) as they were when the battles were fought, to mark all the points of attack pr defense by either side, to set up monuments to commemorate the troops which fought, and so far as practicable restore the fields to their original condition; and this design has been carried out to the letter. The Chickamauga and Chattanooga campaigns were in a measure representu-

tive of the whole country. Chlokamaugu is helU by military experts to have been the best demonstration of the pluck, endurance, prowess anil strategy of the American soldier ever given and, measured by percentage of losses and the duration of the fighting, the deadliest conflict of modern times, while its sequel and companionpiece, Chattanooga, is considered to have been the most spectacular engagement. Of the ten square miles constituting the area of the park something over 5,000 acres are forest and about 1,000 acres open farms. A central driveway, passing and ovedpokiug all the heavy hghting ground, has been built twenty u piles long. Forty,-),wo miles of the roads of the bnttles have been reopened aiid improved in a substantial and enduring manner, and new roads have been dotted up. Many of the minor roads ulso been cutout nnd graded, so that'there a i-e now about sixty miles of driveways in tli« park, nil of them along the roads of the war. The removul of underbrush and the clearing out of the new growth of timber have opened the forest so that carriages cun drive through it in all directions, nnd the appearance now is like thnt of an immense area of forest pasture in the Blue Grnss region. The Chiekamaugn portion of the park is connected with the Chuttannoga end of it by national driveways. Within the park the Government has set up 400 historical tablets and will set up 1,1(00 more hereafter, each three or four feet, consisting of east-iron plates, glazed black, fastened to iron posts set in concrete. On these tablets in embossed white letters are set forth briefly and impartially the historic details of the six battles —Ohiekamauga, Missionary Ridge, Ixiokout Mountain, Orchard Knob, Wauhatehie and Brown's Ferry. They also mark the positions of army headquarters, corps, divisions and brigades, both Union and Confederate, and the parts taken by each organization are concisely stated, without censure and without praise. Besides these tablets, the Government has erected nine handsome granite monuments, nil different, one for euch of the organizations of regular troops engaged iu the battles. It lias also built, on the spots where they fell, eight pyramidal monuments of novel design, each ten feet high, constructed of eight-inch shells, in honor of four general Union officers and four Confederate officers killed in action. In addition, the Government ha? built five tall observation towers of iron and steel seventy feet high, two on Missionary Ridge and three on Chiekamaugn field, from which the landscape below is seen clearly nnd easily recognizable from its markings. And, finally, the Government has marked the most important fighting positions occupied by each of the thirtyfive Union batteries and thirty-nine Com federate batteries engaged in the battles by 400 mounted ennnon of the types and appearance then used, giving to the fields an impressive element of realism. Two guns markj each battery location, and, inasmuch as some of the batteries occupied several different positions and did notable fighting at different points in the fields at separate stages of the battles, many positions have had to be duplicated, thus utilizing in all 400 cannon to locate tho spots occupied by the seventy-four batteries. • The only private monument yet contracted for is to be ejected to commemmorate the valor of George W. Landrum, a lieutenant of the Second Ohio Regiment, who was shot on .the afternoon of Sspt. 20, 1863, by some men of the Third Tennessee Regiment, while carrying a verbal message from General Thomas to General Rosecrans. His dying words were: “I am glad to have shed my blood in so noble a cause.” But while the national government has

marked these positions it has b«en left to the States haring troops in the battles to erect monuments to State regiments and organizations and to the military societies to commemorate the particular services of their membership. Twenty-eight States had organisations in these battles, a more general representation than appeared upon any other battlefield of tha war. Five States had troops on both side*—Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, West Virginia aud Maryland. At

Chickamauga ltosecrans had 129 regiments of infantry and enough cavalry and artillery to make up a total of 182 organizations. Bragg hnd 138 regiments of Infantry, 33 of cavalry, and 41 batteries. Still, despite the general representation, four Northern States furnished the bulk of the Union troops. These were Ohio with 55 organizations, Indiana with 37, Illinois with 33, and Kentucky with 17. On the Confederate side Tennessee had 5(1 organizations at Chickamauga, Alabama had 30, Georgia 24, Mississippi 21, and Arkansas 16. In the Chattanooga movement Grant had 220 regiments of Infantry and, with his cavalry and artillery, 201 organizations. Bragg hnd 108 regiments of iufuntry, 33 regiments of cavalry and 40 batteries, altogether 242 organizations. The distribution by States wus a little wider, but the bulk of the troops wore furnished by Ohio, Illinois uud Indiana, Ohio having 09 organizations there, Illinois 55, Indiana 34, Missouri 17, New York 10, Pennsylvania 12, lowa 11, and Wisconsin 10. On the Confederate side Tennessee furnished 54 organizations, Georgia 50, Alulmmn 44, Mississippi 13, uud .Carolina 15. The States Lave as a rulo provided one inemoriul for each organization, making a spoctuele which has no counterpart ou any other battlefield In the world.

BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA. Most Remarkable and Hunuuinury of Modern Wars, It was on the afternoon of Sept. 18, 1803, thnt the first shot was fired. All that day Bragg, who hud been flanked out of Cha(oyioogu, bad been trying to got his army between Uosencruns and the City of Chattunooga, and Rosecrnns, who hud sent hia army South in pursuit L Bragg, having discovered Brngg’s design, was making an equally'desperate effort to concentrate his scattered divisions between Bragg and tho city. At thnt time the forest was primeval in denkbness, and the underbrush so thick that it was impossible to see more than 100 yards ahead. Igiwrant of each other's exact locution, the two armies came nonror to each other. At daybreak on Saturday morning, Sept. 10, (hey came face to face In,this foroßt of pine's uud Indian-like jungle of underbrush, uud by 7:30 o'clock that morning tho most remarkable buttle of the civil war was raging in all its fury. Tho losses were appalling. In the next forty-eight hours 20,000 men wero killed, and neither side hnd won. At the end of two days both armies withdrew from the field. General Rosecrans retaining possession of Chattanooga, tho objective point of the campaign. General Rose? crane hnd In action thirty brigades of Infantry, five of cnvnlry, one of mouuted infantry and thirty-three batteries, aggregating 50,100 officers and men. General Bragg had thirty-five brigades of Infantryj ten of cnvnlry and about thirty butteries, aggregating probably 05,000 men. The percentage or mortality,for die time of fighting is claimed to bo greater thnn known in any battle In ancient or modern history. But tho battle hud other features of a remarkable nature. As a general thing the armies know of each other’s nppron/h.

An attack being mnde or threatened by n large force was the signal for the smaller to retreat. The approach of ono regiment upon another regiment was usually known to the eye of each. But at the battle of Cliickumauga there was no warning, and hence no preparation. Unaware of their proximity, the two armies came face to face in a smlden and terrible crush, and the smoke from the guns of the men on one side mingled with the smoke of the guns of the men on the other. Often it was a hand-to-hand conflict. The denseness of the forest shortened the vision, and regiment met regimont almost at elbows. The battle field proper is about six miles long north nnd south, and a little more than two miles wide east and west, this now being about the size of the ground reserved for the park. On this small plot of ground thousands and thousands of men met, fought and died in tho bloodiest battle of the war. Brigade after brigade, regiment nfter regiment and division after division went up those pine-clad slopes only to fall back again,'repulsed. Neither side knew at any time during the two days’ battle what it had lost or what the other perhaps had gained. For twenty-seven years after this memorable battle nothing was done, to commemorate the spot. The underbrush was the same, and the forest denser than ever, for the trees which had been shot down or shattered had healed and grown again, stronger, bigger and taller than before. Once an enterprising gentleman started a sawmill in the vicinity, but quit the business at the end of a month with a Ihoice assortment of ruined saws. For years and years no sawmill man would dare touch a piece of timber from the Chiekamaugn battle field, for he never knew when the teeth of his circular would plow Into a shattered cannon ball or a nest of flattened bullets. For two days it fairly rained lead nnd iron in that forest, and bullets pattered like raindrops pn tho antumn leaves. No wonder the oaks and pines carry memories of the battlo. For that reason this timber has never been of use to man except in the way of relics.

MAP OF CHICKAMAUGA AND CHATTANOOGA NATIONAL PARK.

ONE OF THE EIGHT SHELL MONUMENTS MARKING THE SPOT WHERE BRIGADE COMMANDERS WERE KILLED: CUICKAMAUGA.

OBSERVATORY TOWER, CHICKAMAUGA.

SPECIMEN MONUMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CAVALRY.