Resaca, 2009

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Battle Map

COMPANY AYTCH

 By Sam Watkins

 And we were double quicking, we knew not whither, but that always meant fight.  We pressed over the hill, and through the valley, and there is old Joe pointing toward the tank with his sword.  (He looked like the pictures you see hung upon the walls.)   We crossed the railroad.  Halloo! Here comes a cavalry charge from the Yankee line.

Now for it; we will see how Yankee cavalry fight.  We are not supported; what is the matter?  Are we going to be captured? They thunder down upon us.  Their flat-footed dragoons shake and jar the earth.  They are all around us-we are surrounded.

“Form square!  Platoons, right and left wheel! Kneel and fire!”  There we were in a hollow square.  The Yankees had never seen anything like that before.  It was something new.  They charged right upon us.  Colonel Field, sitting on his gray mare, right in the center of the hollow square, gives the command, “Front rank, kneel and present bayonet against cavalry.”

The front rank knelt down, placing the butts of their guns against their knees.  “Rear rank, fire at will; commence firing.”  Now, a;; this happened in less time than it takes me to write it.  They charged right upon us, no doubt expecting to ride right over us, and trample us to death with the hoofs of their horses.  They tried to spur and whip their horses over us, but the horses had more sense that that.

We were pouring a deadly fire right into their faces, and soon men and horses were writhing in the death agonies; officers were yelling at the top of their voices, “Surrender! Surrender!” but we were having too good a thing of it.  We were killing them by the scores, and they could not fire at us; if they did they either overshot or missed their aim.  Their ranks soon began to break and get confused, and finally they were routed, and broke and ran in all directions, as fast as their horses could carry them.

When we re-formed our regiment and marched back, we were found that General Johnson’s army had all passed over the bridge at Resaca.  Now, reader, this was one of our tight places.  The First Tennessee Regiment was always ordered to hold tight places, which we always did.  We were about the last troops that passed over.

Now gentle reader, that is all I know of the battle of Resaca.  We had repulsed every charge, had crossed the bridge with every wagon, and cannon, and everything, and had nothing lost or captured.  It beat anything that haw ever been recorded in history.  I wonder why old Joe did not attack in their rear.  The explanation was that Hood’s line was being enfiladed, his men decimated, and he could not hold his position.