REHERSAL TO GAIN THE HEIGHTS

The battle of Chickamauga over the last days of September 1863 delivered a severe blow to the Union Army of the Cumberland pushing that army back into the fortifications of Chattanooga while the victorious Confederate Army of Tennessee stood upon the heights surrounding the city – Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge.

Both armies had suffered severely after Chickamauga, not only in losses of manpower – 16,000+ on the Federal side and over 18,000 for the Confederates – but losses in animals, essential to move the armies and their supplies.  Both sides relied upon overdrawn supply lines to restore their forces.  Confederate forces had but a single rickety line leading south to Atlanta – the Western & Atlanta – while the Federal railhead sat at Stevenson and Bridgeport, Alabama 20-25 miles to the west.

But it was the loss of animals for both sides leading to immobility.  Without enough animals – and in the Confederate case, wagons to hold supplies and munitions – the armies were hard pressed to push their forces too far beyond the rail heads which provided supplies to keep the forces in the field.  On the Confederate side, Generals James Longstreet and Nathan Forrest pushed their commander Braxton Bragg to continue their offensive with sweeping attacks to the north to further isolate the Federals stuck in Chattanooga.

ORCHARD KNOB

If you visit the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, one of the little-visited and lesser-known sections of the park is the small two block area taken up by the Orchard Knob Reservation.  There are several monuments to different units of the Federal army taking part in the Chattanooga campaign with pathways connecting through the little park on the hill.  The Knob sits about halfway between the National Cemetery and Missionary Ridge.  The view of the Ridge from atop the Knob is excellent, a good reason attracting most of the chief men of the Union army to observe the battle of Missionary Ridge on 25 November 1863.

The Knob is a little hill rising only about fifty feet, but it represented the forward outposts of the Army of Tennessee as they tried pinning the Federals back into the city of Chattanooga.  The forward positions consisted of a series of pits dug giving some protection to skirmishers who set out to keep an eye on the Federal posts.  The soldiers posted in the pits served as a tripwire for the main Confederate body set out along the base of Missionary Ridge a mile to the east.

AFTER CHICKAMAUGA

Chattanooga had undergone defensive fortification work before the Chickamauga campaign by the Confederates.  Driven out by the Federal moves – “temporarily” was Braxton Bragg’s – Confederate commander – thought at the time.  He moved his reinforced army to take on the separated columns of the Federal army, moving through the hills to the south of Chattanooga.  While he did score a significant victory at Chickamauga over the Army of the Cumberland, the Federals were able to retreat to Chattanooga fairly intact.  Union troops set themselves to reworking the Confederate forts into a much more imposing defense.

Driving around the inner part of Chattanooga, you can find bronze plaques noting the previous presence of the forts and batteries making up the Union defenses around the town. 

FORT WOOD

Fort Wood one of the main redoubts facing the Confederate positions on Missionary Ridge.  Located beyond the east side of the town at that time, the area around the fort became an area of prime real estate for homes in the late 19^th century.  Today, the Fort Wood District is still home to fancy old homes in an area sought out because of its close location to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.  A couple of homes sport Civil War cannons on their lawns which are set on the approximate locations of the former fort.

Fort Wood was where Generals Ulysses Grant and George Thomas observed the Federal attacks on Orchard Knob 23 November 1863.  The attacks were a reconnaissance in force.  Grant was afraid that Bragg was moving his forces away from Chattanooga, possibly to reinforce moves to push north towards Knoxville.  The Federal armies had been waiting for the arrival of units coming west from the Army of the Tennessee, Grant’s old command now led by William Sherman.  With Sherman’s force augmenting the Army of the Cumberland and Joseph Hooker’s 11^th and 12^th Corps sent east from the Army of the Potomac, Grant hoped to bring battle to Bragg’s forces.

FEDERAL PLANS

His plan was to use Sherman’s force to hit the Confederates hard on their north flank of Missionary Ridge.  Sherman’s forces were still moving into position when Bragg began shifting his forces about.  He was sending more troops north to try and help James Longstreet’s corps in his bid to push Federals under the command of Ambrose Burnside out of Knoxville and eastern Tennessee.  Because of these moves, Grant wanted to make sure Bragg was not moving his entire army away from Chattanooga.

Grant also wanted to see if the Army of the Cumberland could still fight after their defeat at Chickamauga.  He had the impression that hard fighting could only be undertaken by his westerners, especially after Thomas had demurred an earlier plan of Grant’s to attack Missionary Ridge on 7 November due to a lack of horses and mules to move his artillery about on the battlefield.

ATTACK ON THE KNOB

For the move on Orchard Knob, Thomas gave the work to the 4^th Corps commanded by General Gordon Granger.  Granger used the division of Thomas Wood as his spearhead with the divisions of Philip Sheridan to his right and Absalom Baird in reserve.  The troops of the 11^th Corps of Oliver Howard provided protection on Wood’s left.  Almost 14,000 Union troops began marching out at 1330 on 23 November.  Orchard Knob only sported 634 soldiers in defense.  Most of the Confederate defenders dropped back to their main lines at the base of Missionary Ridge in response though the 28^th Alabama misconstrued the message to withdraw.  The 28^th and 24^th Alabama defended the Knob that day as part of Arthur Manigault’s brigade.  Both suffered losses, about 175 casualties, especially the 28^th which gave ground more obstinately.

Grant managed to keep Bragg from sending more troops north to Longstreet through his recon in force.  Bragg began to shuffle his forces more to his right – north – flank to tighten his hold around Missionary Ridge, as a result.  He moved men off Lookout Mountain and sent them from his left to the right.  His timing, consistent with most of his moves during the Chattanooga campaign, turned out badly.  Stripping away from his left proved fatal to his position on Lookout Mountain the following day.  It also set the Army of the Cumberland in a better position from which to launch its attack upon Missionary Ridge two days later.

VISITING ORCHARD KNOB

Orchard Knob Reservation takes up two blocks with the hill rising about 60 feet on the west side.  There are a series of monuments atop the hill on the west central part with a group of monuments huddled in the southwestern corner, a couple more in the northwestern corner and a monument to the 8^th Kansas in the northeast corner.

MONUMENTS SOUTHWEST CORNER

27th pennsyvlania and 10th michigan

First to the southeast corner with several fronting North Hawthorne Street.  From the north there is first the monument to the 27^th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment.  This regiment, a part of their original colonel’s – Adolphus Buschbeck – brigade of the 11^th Army Corps, had a long history of action during the war dating back to First Manassas.  Along with the 73^rd Pennsylvania, they would suffer in attacking the west side of Tunnel Hill on 25 November.

Here, the commanding officer Peter McAloon fell mortally wounded. For some reason, the monument of the 27th is here instead of at the 73rd Pennsylvania Reservation next to Tunnel Hill. Like many of the regiments remembered here at Orchard Knob, the 27th Pennsylvania also have a monument erected at Gettysburg, on East Cemetery Hill.

Next in line is the monument to the 10^th Michigan Infantry Regiment.  Part of the division of Jefferson C. Davis, this division crossed the Tennessee with Sherman’s troops on 24 November.  They served as a reserve for Sherman’s efforts on Tunnel Hill on 25 November.  The regiment went on to factor in the Atlanta campaign before following Sherman to the Sea and through the Carolinas.

kanap’s battery

The next monument remembers Knap’s Pennsylvania Battery.  Originally organized by Joseph Knap, the battery had a long history of fighting in the East – Cedar Mountain, Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg before coming west with the 12^th Corps.  The battery was heavily engaged at the night battle at Wauhatchie – 28-29 October.  Both the commanding officer – Captain Charles Atwell – and the son of division commander John Geary, Lieutenant Edward Geary, died at the battle along with half of the battery’s horses.  The battery took part in both the Battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge with Geary’s Division under Joseph Hooker.  As a part of the 20^th Corps – made up of the former 11^th and 12^th Corps units, they followed Sherman’s forces throughout the rest of the war.

Constitution State

Connecticut has erected a monument to the two regiments serving in the 12^th Corps at the time of the Chattanooga Campaign, the 5^th and the 20^th Infantry Regiments.  Both units have individual monuments in place at Gettysburg.  Here, their home state remembers the service provided by these men guarding the long rail line back to Nashville.  They too would follow Sherman for the rest of the war.  Colonel William Wooster, commanding the 20^th, would go on in the spring of 1864 to become the colonel of the 29^th Connecticut Infantry Regiment, that State’s first all-black regiment.  They marched into Richmond, Virginia as the first Federal troops entering the capital of the Confederacy on 8 March 1865.

Bay State

On the corner is the State of Massachusetts Monument to her 2^nd and 33^rd Infantry Regiments.  The 33^rd was heavily involved in fighting at Wauhatchie on 28-29 October.  Along with the 73^rd Ohio, they took on an entire brigade of Confederates – Evander Law – routing them though suffering in the process.  Colonel Adin Underwood was thought mortally wounded.  Surviving his wound, though crippled for life with a wound in the thigh, he returned to Boston as surveyor of the port and to a legal practice after the war.  The 2^nd Massachusetts served guarding the rail line further north at Tullahoma at the time of Chattanooga.

Pontoon Builders

Coming around the corner on the south – Ivy Street – is the monument to the 1^st Michigan Engineers and Mechanics Regiment.  One of ten such regiments serving the Federal army during the war, the 1^st Michigan was mustered into service 29 October 1861.  The regiment attended to the various engineering problems faced by the Army of the Cumberland during the war.  They were responsible for rebuilding railroads, bridges, blockhouses and for destroying them, if needed.  The men built pontoon bridges across the Tennessee in Chattanooga, at Brown’s Ferry and near the South Chickamauga Creek where Sherman’s divisions crossed into battle at Tunnel Hill.  Colonel William Innes led the regiment.  He served as a civil engineer in Grand Rapids, Michigan before the war.  Innes oversaw the first rail line to cross the state from Detroit to Grand Haven just before the war.

As his men worked often along rail lines away from the main armies, they were attacked several times by Confederate cavalry forces.  One attack led by Joseph Wheeler, Bragg’s chief of cavalry, surrounded the regiment of 391 men with 3,000 to 4,000 horsemen at La Vergne, Tennessee halfway between Nashville and Murfreesboro where the Battle of Stones River was ongoing at the same time.  Wheeler sent a messenger to Innes requesting his surrender.  The colonel replied, “We don’t surrender much.”  The Confederates rode away as Federal reinforcements marched to the engineers’ aid.  They provided much of the destruction used by Sherman during his March to the Sea campaign.

109^th Pennsylvania Infantry

Recruited mainly from Philadelphia, the 109^th Pennsylvania had seen its share of fighting by the Fall of 1863 – Shenandoah, Cedar Mountain, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg – you can see a copy of this monument on Culp’s Hill there.  On the night of 28-29 October, as part of George Cobham’s brigade, they were part of the guard over the supply trains at Wauhatchie attacked by Confederates of Jenkin’s Brigade commanded by Colonel John Bratton.  That battle went from midnight until 0300 when, with the men running low on ammunition, the Confederates withdrew.

The 109^th, being a small regiment by this time in the war with a captain in charge – Frederik Gimber who took over at Gettysburg – were given guard duty for the brigade camp during the actions on Lookout Mountain of 24 November.  They were back in action on 25 November as the regiment took part in Hooker’s sweep up Missionary Ridge from the south during the afternoon fighting.  The regiment would continue the war fighting with Sherman’s forces through Atlanta, to the Sea and beyond.

Moses Veale, a captain with the 109^th, earned a Medal of Honor in 1894. It was given him for his actions at Wauhatchie. Here, even being hit by four enemy bullets and having his horse shot out from under him, he continued to leading his men cool and calmly.  The medal was one of two given to men of the 109^th during the war.

WISCONSIN

Uphill from the monuments scattered along the street are two State monuments similar in style. They feature tall soaring central obelisks and the names of the regiments emanating from those States.  Lower down the hill is the Wisconsin Monument.  Polished Corinthian granite column rising just over 30 feet high with a 13 by 13-foot base.  The State seal is emblazoned on the column with the regiments inscribed on the base.

Artillery units included the 3^rd, 5^th, 6^th, 8^th, 10^th, and 12^th light field batteries and the 1^st heavy battery.  The 1^st Wisconsin Cavalry Regiment is noted.  Infantry regiments include the 1^st, 10^th, 15^th, 21^st, 24^th, and 26^th.  Four of those regiments were commanded by captains during the battles here at Chattanooga indicative of the hard fighting the men in those regiments already went through.

1^st, 10^th and 21^st Whisky

The 1^st Wisconsin, originally commanded by the now-brigade commander, Brigadier General John Starkweather, was led here by Lieutenant Colonel George Bingham.  Their brigade held back holding the fortifications in town just in case things went bad during the attacks.  The 21^st Wisconsin belonged to the same brigade and were not involved in the battles.  They had not been told to retreat off Horseshoe Ridge at the end of the Battle of Chickamauga.  Seventy of the men including their commander Colonel Harrison Hobart were captured.  Hobart would later rejoin the 21^st in time for the Atlanta Campaign. He escaped Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia 9 February 1864 through a tunnel with 109 other prisoners.  Both regiments fought long and hard with the Army of the Cumberland.

Chickamauga crushed the 10^th Wisconsin, as well.  Fighting with Scribner’s Brigade, they fell left behind. Out of ammunition at the end of the day losing their commander Lieutenant Colonel John Ely mortally wounded and 123 men captured.  Led by Captain Jacob Roby at Chattanooga. Here, they supported the artillery guns of Battery A 1^st Michigan Artillery, another unit hard-pressed at Chickamauga losing five of their six guns on 19 September.  The battery and the 10^th Wisconsin stayed on Cameron Hill during the fight at Chattanooga.

Scandanavians of the 15^th Wisconsin

The 15^th Wisconsin originally comprised of Norwegian immigrants along with some others from Sweden and Denmark had suffered severe losses – only 75 of 176 still standing – at Chickamauga, as well.  Their original colonel, Hans Heg died on 19 September near Viniard Field.  Lieutenant Colonel Ole Johnson suffered capture on the next day when the regiment was thrown too late into the hole left by General Wood’s division just as Longstreet’s assault on the Federal center began.  He would escape in May 1864 and led the regiment throughout the rest of the war from there. 

At Chattanooga, the 15^th was led by Captain John Gordon.  At Orchard Knob, they served as skirmishers for August Willich’s brigade chasing the 24^th Alabama out of their rifle outposts.   Then, on 25 November, they fought as reserves behind the main line of the brigade as they successfully advanced to the top of Missionary Ridge.

Germans from wisconsin

Germans made up much of the 26^th Wisconsin.  Part of the division of Major General Carl Schurz, they had fought several battles as part of the 9^th Corps in Virginia.  The 26^th received their baptism of fire from Stonewall Jackson’s troops when taken by surprise in the woods of Chancellorsville.  Caught up in the rout that followed, they suffered again on the first day at Gettysburg.  At the end of that battle only four officers survived unhurt.  Sent east with the rest of the 9^th Corps after Chickamauga, they held a fleeting glance at the Battle of Wauhatchie.  They played a reserve role during the rest of the battles here with their division of the corps holding ground between the men of Sherman on Tunnel Hill and the Army of the Cumberland strung out to the south on Missionary Ridge.

macarthur and the 24th

Lastly, the 24^th Wisconsin.  This regiment made famous by the 18-year-old Arthur MacArthur, Jr., son of a prominent Wisconsin politician and judge.  Arthur picked up the regimental colors during the assault on Missionary Ridge from an out of breath color sergeant’s hands.  He took the flag up the hill in front of his fellow soldier and planted it atop the Confederate line.  Eventually, he would win the Medal of Honor – 28 years later – for his actions, as well as a brevet to colonel.  Arthur would end his life in 1912 as a lieutenant general with a long history of service – including twenty years as a captain.  At his burial, his coffin was draped with the original 24^th US flag beginning the tradition of burial flags.  There is a marker on Crest Drive where the regiment reached the top of the Ridge.

Arthur’s son, Douglas, would go on to even higher heights within the US Army becoming one of only five men to gain the rank of five-star general. Another officer in the 24th, Lieutenant John L. Mitchell‘s son, Billy, provided much of the early oversight in the development of American airpower in World War 1 and beyond.

GARDEN STATE

13TH NEW JERSEY

Thirty-eight feet tall and eight feet square at the base, the base, pedestal, and shaft of the obelisk of the New Jersey State Monument on Orchard Knob made of Quincy granite topped with a sculpture of a Federal soldier with a flag carved from Maine granite.  Two regiments from the Garden State are memorialized here:  the 13^th and 33^rd New Jersey Infantry Regiments.   The 13^th, commanded by Colonel Ezra Carman, was off guarding the rail lines to Nashville during the Chattanooga campaign.  They would return to the 12^th Corps in time for the Atlanta Campaign.  Carman established himself as an expert on the Battle of Antietam where the 13^th fought hard.  He later served as the superintendent for the Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Battlefield from 1901 until 1905.

33RD NEW JERSEY

The other New Jersey regiment, the 33^rd, had an unsavory reputation for including draft dodgers and those lured by big sign-up bonuses.  So many quickly began to desert after receiving their bonuses for enlisting at Newark, regular troops came in to surround the camp to keep the men from disappearing.  244 men out of 902 ended up deserting.  Not a great start to the regiment as they ignominiously marched under guard to the South in early September 1863 as part of the 12^th Corps.

One first lieutenant, John Toffey, led his men as skirmishers for the 33^rd New Jersey on 23 November during the assault on Orchard Knob.  The 33^rd sat on the left wing of the attack in which, even though Toffey was excused from duty because of illness. He led his men here at the Knob.  During the battle, Toffey suffered a wound in the thigh though his men continued the successful charge.  Toffey would eventually receive the Medal of Honor in 1897, a year after presiding over the dedication of the monument here.  The regiment went on to support the brigade of Colonel John Loomis.   They would go on to many more fights marching south the next year with Sherman.

ILLINOIS

The State of Illinois erected the largest monument here at Orchard Knob.  Placed upon the spot where adopted-native son Major General Ulysses Grant oversaw the actions of the Federal armies on 25 November, the monument rises fifty feet in the air from an eleven-foot square base.  The corners of the monument marked with the symbols of the various army corps within which Illinois units fought with. 

Dating to 1899 – restored in 1990 – the Quincy granite monument forms a triumphal arch with a single column rising above topped with a soldier holding a flag.  Inside the arch, the many Illinois units are inscribed on bronze plaques.  Several of those units also remembered on the various battlefields with the ubiquitous Illinois rectangular monuments found here as they are on many other Civil War battlefields.  Twenty-one different infantry and cavalry units are listed along with eleven various artillery batteries.

MARYLAND

Maryland put up a monument here on Orchard Knob to two of her units, one on each side:  the 3^rd Maryland Infantry USA and the 3^rd Maryland Battery CSA.  The 3^rd Maryland Battery wandered all over the western theater of the Civil War ending up surrendering in Vicksburg with its fall.  Paroled a month later, they replaced four guns joining Bragg at Chattanooga.  They served in reserve during the battle going on to continue its wanderings first through the Atlanta Campaign.

The 3^rd Maryland Infantry Regiment – USA – served as another of the regiments posted out along the long rail line between Stevenson-Bridgeport, Alabama to Nashville.  They fought in many battles with the Army of the Potomac, and they had more to come.  The regiment has a monument at Gettysburg, and they are remembered on the Maryland Monument at Antietam as one of the Maryland units fighting there, as well.

NEW YORK

New York was another State bringing many various regiments and artillery batteries to the battles here at Chattanooga.  Ten regiments are listed on the fourteen-foot square base along with one artillery battery.  A 44-foot-high Corinthian column supports a bronze soldier on guard looking towards Missionary Ridge.  Exploits of the various New York regiments recounted on the bronze plaques at the base.

New York has another State monument atop Lookout Mountain – Peace Monument – with bronze plaques at Lookout Mountain – Cravens House, Wauhatchie, and Missionary Ridge.

BRIDGES’ ARTILLERY

Bridges’ Battery Illinois Light Artillery originally organized as a company of the 19^th Illinois Infantry regiment in the summer of 1861.  Early in January 1863, the company reorganized as an independent artillery battery under the command of Captain Lyman Bridges.  Attached to Brigadier General John Beatty’s brigade at Chickamauga, they marched with those men on the morning of 20 September 1863 to attempt to extend the left flank of General Thomas’ line.  Deploying across the Lafayette Road near where the guns and the Illinois monument stand for the battery, the infantry ordered to march further north 400 yards just as they became engulfed by two and a half Confederate brigades.  Two of the six guns were lost with the many horses and men lost in the ensuing battle.  Bridges withdrew to Snodgrass Hill where they set up before being ordered off the field by Major General James Negley.

For the Chattanooga campaign, the battery rearmed with two 12-pound Napoleon cannons and four 3-inch Ordnance rifled cannons.  Attached to Thomas Woods division, part of Major General Gordon Granger’s 4^th Corps.  With Orchard Knob captured 23 November, Bridges’ Battery posted onto the hill to support the Federal attack on Missionary Ridge 25 November. 

MISSIONARY RIDGE

The guns of the battery blasted the six shots signaling the start of that attack at 1530.  It was Bridges’ Battery where Granger, an old artillery officer, became absorbed in the aiming of the guns – similar to what he did on Horseshoe Ridge at Chickamauga – making General Grant have to repeat his order to fire the guns to signal the commencement of the attack.  The annoyance added to a host of others Grant held against Granger which would lead to his dismissal not long after the battle.  Bridges’ guns “continued a rapid and annoying fire over the heads of the assaulting Union troops till the ridge was carried.”

The battery continued the war as a part of the Army of the Cumberland moving to Atlanta and then back to Franklin and Nashville where the Army of Tennessee was finally destroyed in late 1864.  Bridges, himself, would serve as divisional and part-time corps artillery commander after Chattanooga.  A civil engineer – railroads his specialty – by profession, he returned to Chicago after the war, eventually moving to California where he died in 1919.

OHIO

There are several bronze tablets to Ohio Regiments standing on the northwest side of the top of the hill just beyond the New York State Monument.  Here are tablets to the 55^th, 61^st, 73^rd and the 82^nd Ohio Infantry Regiments.  The 55^th and 73^rd belonged to the division of Brigadier General Adolphus von Steinwehr while the other two belonged to the division of Major General Carl Schurz.  Both divisions belonged to the 11^th Corps under the command of Oliver Howard.  They all played supporting roles on Orchard Knob and Missionary Ridge where the main purpose was to connect the forces of Sherman at Tunnel Hill to the men of the Army of the Cumberland arrayed against Missionary Ridge.

61ST AND 55TH OHIO

All these regiments sport monuments at Gettysburg where they all fought and lost heavily on the first day in the fields on the north side of the town.  The 61^st originally featured a commander as one Colonel Newton Schleich.  Schleich was a notoriously bad political appointee with little knowledge of military affairs.  Despised by his commanders – George McClellan wrote his wife the little Ohio colonel “knows nothing”.  John Beatty, then a lieutenant colonel with the 3^rd Ohio, described Schleich, “He is a three-months’ brigadier, and a rampant demagogue. … He is what might be called a tremendous little man, swears terribly, and imagines that he thereby shows his snap.  Snap, in his opinion, is indispensable to a military man.  If snap is the only thing a soldier needs, and profanity is snap, Schleich is a Second Napoleon.” 

After two battles with the Army of Virginia in August 1862, Schleich managed to be absent on both occasions.  With Lee’s first invasion of the North after Second Manassas, the Army of Virginia became part of the Army of the Potomac bringing Schleich back under McClellan’s command. 

Seeing the writing on the wall, Schleich resigned with Lieutenant Colonel Stephen McGroarty taking over, leading the regiment for the rest of the war.  By contrast to Schleich, McGroarty suffered twenty-three wounds during his leadership during the war including the loss of his left arm at Peachtree Creek in the summer of 1864.  He eventually died in 1870, a result of his wartime wounds.

CHANCELLORSVILLE TO TENnESSEE

The 55^th, 61^st and 73^rd were on the extreme right flank of the Army of the Potomac when Joseph Hooker led them into the Battle of Chancellorsville in the spring of 1862.  The 55^th finally stabilized the situation after routed by the men of Stonewall Jackson.  Colonel Charles Gambee took over command of the 55^th after Chancellorsville.  He led the men east with the rest of the 11^th Corps after Chickamauga.  They were in reserve at both Wauhatchie and Chattanooga.

73RD OHIO

On the other hand, the men of the 73^rd were right in the middle of the fight at Wauhatchie alongside the men of the 33^rd Massachusetts.  Together, after a rough beginning, they were able to push the Alabama brigade of Evander Law scurrying off into the night in actions on Smith Hill.  The hill became named for the original commander of the 73^rd Ohio, Orland Smith.  Orland Smith was the brigade commander by the time of Wauhatchie.  The 73^rd was led by Major Samuel Hurst by this time.  Another note about the 73^rd was Private George Nixon.  He died of wounds from Gettysburg, but his great grandson would become the 37^th President of the United States. Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Taft came over from the 143rd New York because of a lack of field officers after Wauhatchie. Taft died at Tunnel Hill 25 November.

82ND OHIO

The 82^nd and 61^st belonged to the brigade of Brigadier General Hector Tyndale.  As lead regiments of Schurz’s division marching to the relief of Geary’s men at Wauhatchie, the brigade sidetracked on the way and went to tackle a hill just to the south of Smith Hill in support of the attack there.  By the time they attacked, the Confederates already were retreating across Lookout Creek.  The regiments went on to play supporting roles in the upcoming battles in Chattanooga.

MORE PENNSYLVANIA

In the far northwest corner of the Orchard Knob Reservation sit two monuments remembering regiments from Pennsylvania, the 46^th and the 75^th Infantry.  The 46^th, like other regiments of the 12^th Corps, started life in the Shenandoah Valley before becoming part of John Pope’s Army of Virginia.  At Cedar Mountain, the regiment punched through Stonewall Jackson’s line, but lack of support forced them back with heavy loss – 48% lost.  Following the Second Manassas, that army was added to the Army of the Potomac.  Chancellorsville and Gettysburg followed – the 46^th has a monument on Culp’s Hill – before the 12^th Corps came west.  They spent the time during the Chattanooga campaign guarding rail lines near Bridgeport, Alabama.  They would follow Sherman through the rest of the war to Atlanta, Savannah, and the Carolinas.

The 75^th was led by Major August Ledig (Misspelled last name on the monument).  He led after the last commander, Francis Mahler died at Gettysburg.  A German American regiment mainly from Philadelphia, they were part of the 11^th Corps fighting previously in the Shenandoah Valley, Second Manassas, Chancellorsville ang Gettysburg before coming west.  Part of the brigade of Friedrich Hecker, one of the most popular speakers of the 1848 Revolution in Germany, the men halted during the night action at Wauhatchie on their way to march in support of Geary’s division.  The halt came to make sure the Confederates were not attempting to march on Brown’s Ferry in the same action.  Eventually, they proceeded to meet up with Geary around 0500.  They spent the rest of the battles around Chattanooga in support.

KANSAS 8^TH INFANTRY

The 8^th Kansas Regiment came together as a complete unit in time for the Tullahoma Campaign in the summer of 1863.  Before that time, the regiment had spent much of its life with companies separated to different postings.  With the Army of the Cumberland, they formed part of Hans Heg’s brigade at Chickamauga.  At that battle, the Kansans suffered severe losses both 19 and 20 September first in the woods just north of Viniard Field and then caught up in the maelstrom of Longstreet’s assault on the next day.  They stood resolutely fending off the first two assaults before the hole in the Federal line and the lack of numbers made for another black day. 

The regiment ended up losing 65% of the 406 men going into the battle. After the battle, the brigade – led now by Colonel John Martin, former commander of the 8^th – consolidated with that of August Willich’s in the division of Thomas Wood.

orchard knob

They participated in the capture of Orchard Knob on 23 November.  Two days later, the 8^th Kansas was at the center of Wood’s division as they marched against Missionary Ridge.  Charging up one of the gullies, they captured more men than they had in their regiment as they joined the other victorious Federals atop.  They fought through the Atlanta Campaign and followed the Army of the Cumberland as they dealt with John Hood’s last attempt in Tennessee during late 1864.  John Martin went on to become the Governor of Kansas postwar.

Besides the monument here on the northeast corner of the Orchard Knob Reservation, the regiment boasts a large monument just to the north of Viniard Field at Chickamauga.  There is also a monument atop Missionary Ridge on Crest Drive noting where the regiment crested the slopes 25 November.