temporarily. He resumed the removal of the wounded to the rear until evening when the Confederates took possession of the whole field and he again became prisoner. Next morning he escaped and made his way to Chattanooga. All the wounded had been gotten away except thirty. Four surgeons and a few men were purposely left behind with the wounded and to collect others. The camp and supplies were lost. The wounded on hand were brought off well, but this hospital, like the other, was of little use to its division on the most deadly day of the conflict. Both these hospitals were cut off before ten o'clock. Their position on the road to Rossville had allowed the removal of most of the wounded of the first day's battle; but for the great battle of the second day they were useless.

Let us see what happened on the right flank. The history of all the seven hospitals near Crawfish Springs was much the same. When Longstreet broke through the Union right at noon, all these hospitals were cut off from the army. Fortunately his victorious troops on passing the Vittetoe house turned to the right, and left the trains and hospitals unmolested for a time. They were safely guarded by the cavalry though separated from the main body of the army.

When it was known that the right wing was driven off the field the division surgeons consulted with each other and decided to abandon their hospitals. All wagons of every description, and ambulances, were loaded with all the wounded they could possibly carry; all that could march were sent on ahead and the whole caravan moved by a woods road back to Missionary Ridge and then to McFarland's Gap and Chattanooga. The cavalry covered the withdrawal of these wounded and trains very successfully. It appears that they might easily have been captured.

The tents as a rule were left, with a number of the more desperately wounded men. Medical officers, men, and supplies were left at each hospital. The hospital of the fourth division, 14th Corps (Reynolds), was captured entire with its officers. In the two division hospitals of the twentieth corps there were left two hundred and fifty wounded with eleven medical officers and 3,000 rations. The first division lost fourteen ambulances, the third lost one. It will be noted that more wounded were left in the more distant hospitals than in those on the left flank near Chat

tanooga. The records of all these hospitals were incomplete and in some all records were left behind.

All the division hospitals of the twenty-first corps (Crittenden) were abandoned by two o'clock with about two hundred wounded. Fourteen medical officers were detailed to remain with them. As these hospitals had cared for 1,200 wounded they seem to have done their work well until cut off. They were of no more use to the army, but their own corps had left the field.

The hopitals of the second division brought off nearly four hundred, leaving but forty behind. When the last ambulance left the enemy was within a few hundred yards of the hospital.

The third division brought off all their wounded except sixty, the first division left about one hundred.

We have now seen that by noon of the second day, or a little later, the two hospitals on the left flank and seven on the right had been entirely cut off from the army. But one remains, that of Brannan's division (3-14), near the Dyer house, the best located of all. It will be remembered that this hospital was kept clear.

When the attack began on Sunday morning shells fell about the place; by 10 o'clock it was in great danger and was at once evacuated. All the wounded except forty had been sent off during the night. These, with the tents and supplies, were loaded on the wagons and removed to Chattanooga. It was doubtless then thought that the whole battle was lost and the army in retreat.

This was the only division hospital brought off the field entire, due largely to its excellent location and in part to good manage

ment.

The army now had not a single available hospital left on the field, and the long desperate battle of the afternoon was yet to come. Map III shows the field at the time with all the hospitals out of reach. When the hospitals were abandoned at least half the medical officers and a considerable number of ambulances remained with the troops. Dressing stations were established and the wounded cared for as well as possible with almost no supplies.

THE RETREAT TO CHATTANOOGA.

When at five in the evening the field was finally abandoned some two thousand five hundred wounded were left to the enemy.

Not more than five hundred of these were in the field hospitals; the remainder were in improvised dressing stations, but largely scattered over the field where they fell.

Night found the Army of the Cumberland beaten and sadly depleted but in some kind of a line of battle at Rossville, where it remained all of the next day before falling back to Chattanooga. It was estimated that not more than thirty-five thousand men could be placed in line at that place, so heavy had been the loss.

For the wounded every vehicle was taken and started to the rear; most of them reached Chattanooga Sunday night, but wounded men continued to come in during all of the next day and night. The ambulances were sent back as far as possible to pick up those who were dragging themselves along.

Those able to march did not stop long at Chattanooga, they were sent across the river and continued on their way to Bridgeport. Many of the severe ambulance cases were also sent to the rear. The grave cases were retained in Chattanooga. The general feeling as to the safety of the city at that time was one of serious doubt, and it was desirable to get the wounded to the rear as soon as possible.

The whole number of known wounded at Chickamauga was 9,749; of these about 7,500 reached Chattanooga. Every church, public building, and available house was filled. Many of the inhabitants had left their homes and these houses were seized for the wounded. There was a shortage of supplies at first, but probably no real suffering on that account till later. The medical supply train of the Fourteenth Corps had been brought to the field from Rossville on Sunday morning, but fortunately was turned back and reached Chattanooga in safety, where the supplies it afforded were extremely welcome. The reserve supply trains of the other corps also seem to have escaped but they had expended most of their supplies in equipping the field hospitals which were lost.

On the twenty-second a tent hospital of fifteen hundred beds was established at Stringers on the north side of the Tennessee River. Surgeon Moses, who, as previously stated, had been placed in charge of the hospitals at Chattanooga, says that about four thousand wounded were placed in extemporized hospitals in the city on the twentieth and twenty-first.

Forty surgeons from the army were on duty in these hospitals, and four Confederate surgeons, attending prisoners.

All the severe cases were dressed the same night that they arrived or the next morning, and all received food, which they had not had for two days. This going without food, although much deplored at the time, was in many cases a great advantage. Not many operations were done on the field, very few in fact, as related by all the surgeons. This also was a blessing in disguise. On occupying the town two hundred bales of cotton were found; they were seized and made up into mattresses, and in ten days there was a mattress for every patient.

The exacuation of wounded began at once. The fear that Chattanooga would have to be abandoned and the growing scarcity of supplies rendered this measure imperative. The wounded were sent across the river, and over forty miles of rough mountain roads to Bridgeport, to their great detriment. Three thousand reached that point on foot, some of whom were malingerers. Within a few days steamers came up to Kelly's Ferry, ten miles below the city, and thereafter the wounded were sent by steamer from that point to the hospitals and trains at Bridgeport. The Confederates had advanced to within a few miles of Chattanooga and held the road leading back to Bridgeport on the south side of the river. By November twenty-fourth, one month later, the number of wounded in the general hospitals at Chattanooga had been reduced to four hundred and fifty.

A week after the battle General Rosecrans made arrangements to recover the wounded left on the field and the medical officers held as prisoners. Many had died and some had been sent south, but seventeen hundred and forty were recovered and brought into Chattanooga between September twenty-ninth and October second. Four medical officers were also returned. As the Union forces held but fifty wounded Confederates, those recovered were to be counted in future exchanges. This paroling of the wounded seems to have been an exceedingly advantageous thing for the Confederates, who had not the means for caring for their own wounded properly.

A glimpse of the wounded that were sent south is afforded by the report of Surgeon Joseph Jones of the Confederate Service,