This Hallowed Ground - Bruce Catton [184]
The Army of the Cumberland was cut in half. Everything south of the break-through point — including General Rosecrans himself and two of his three corps commanders, McCook and Crittenden — was driven off, generals and enlisted men and guns and wagons all streaming away from the battle, scrambling for a back road that would get them to the Rossville Gap and safety. Coolly taking everything in, Longstreet let them go and swung his victorious column sharply to the right to come in behind Thomas and break the Union army into panicky shreds. Federal control of everything west of the Alleghenies suddenly teetered and rocked, ready to come down in a Humpty-Dumpty crash that could never be repaired.
Pap Thomas, to be sure, was imperturbable. When things were going badly the only visible sign he ever gave was to indulge in a quaint habit of running his fingers through his patrician gray Virginia whiskers. These whiskers now got a furious going-over, but there was nothing else to show that he was disturbed. He methodically set to work to patch up a new line that would hold off the swarming Confederates long enough to avert complete disaster.
What a general could do, Thomas did; no more dependable soldier for a moment of crisis existed on the North American continent, or ever did exist. But what he could do would depend ultimately on the men in the ranks. These were the western farm boys who had gone wet and hungry under Sherman in Kentucky, who had been coldly drilled and disciplined by prim General Buell, who had stood up to the frozen flames at Stone’s River and gone slogging over the mountains in the heat of a Tennessee summer: and if enough of these would stop and make a fight of it the day might be saved — not otherwise.
The men who had not been driven completely off the field with Rosecrans and McCook and Crittenden were drifting north, division and brigade organization totally broken up, nobody knowing anything except that all the Rebels in the world had punched a hole in the line and were coming on as if they did not propose to stop short of the Ohio River.
Thomas had the spot picked. His own line was a wide horseshoe, bulging toward the east, a great shallow semicircle of fire and smoke and rocketing noise. Running west from the southern end of this horseshoe was a chain of hills, drawing a name from a log farmhouse owned by one Snodgrass, and this high ground Thomas chose as the place for a rally. One of the segments from Wood’s division, scrambling north amid the debris of the break-through, swung around in an open field near the hills and prepared to make a stand. Out of the woods to the south came a battle line in dusty blue, and the men held their fire — these must be some of McCook’s troops coming back into action after their rout. The line came nearer, and Thomas himself rode up and peered through the murk at it. Wave all your flags (he told Wood’s soldiers) and let them see who you are, but if they open fire let them have it: some of the Rebs are wearing blue here. Thomas galloped away, and the advancing line began to fire. It was one of Longstreet’s brigades, wearing Federal uniforms captured in the sack of Harpers Ferry or some such place, and the Westerners had never seen Southerners in blue. They returned the fire uncertainly, too late to do much good, after a brief stand they had to turn and run for it, and they re-formed at last near the Snodgrass house, dumped fence rails and bits of timber to make a breastwork, and began to fire in earnest.
All along these rolling hills a new Federal