Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge: Baird's
As soon as the magnificent lines moved forward, the batteries of the enemy on the ridge opened upon them with great activity. General Brannan's large guns in Fort Wood, Fort Cheatham, Battery Rousseau, and Fort Sheridan, and four light batteries on the intermediate hills, which had not been silent hitherto, gave emphatic response. Their fire was first directed to the enemy's inferior intrenchments, and when this endangered the advancing lines their missiles were thrown upon the summit. This change of direction was soon necessary, as, leaping forward at the signal, the eager troops in rapid movement first met the enemy's pickets and their reserves, then his troops occupying the intervening woods, and finally his stronger line in his lower intrenchments, and drove all in confusion to the crest of the ridge. In vain had General Bragg made effort to strengthen his lower line. The advance of the national troops had been so rapid, and their movement had expressed such purpose and power, that the very forces that had so often repeated their furious assaults at Chickamauga lost courage and made no soldierly effort to maintain their position, though supported by at least fifty guns, which, at short range, were fast decimating the assaulting columns.
Having executed their orders to the utmost requirement, holding the enemy's lower defences, the four divisions stood under his batteries, while the troops they had routed threw themselves behind the stronger intrenchments on the summit. General Bragg's right flank had not been turned, as first proposed, and General Hooker's attack on his left, though successful, was too remote to affect immediately the central contest. To stand still was death; to fall back was not compassed by orders, and was forbidden by every impulse of the brave men who, with no stragglers to mar the symmetry of their line or make scarcely a single exception to universal gallantry, had moved so boldly and so successfully upon the foe. There are occasional moments in battle when brave men do not need commanders, and this was one. The enemy held a position of wonderful strength several hundred feet above them. He had two lines in one behind earthworks, where nature had provided a fortress. These men, however, did not stop to consider the enemy's position or strength, but, from a common impulse of patriotism and the inspiration of partial success, leaped forward and dashed up the hill. The color-bearers sprang to the front, and as one fell another bore the flag aloft and onward, followed by their gallant comrades, not in line, but in such masses as enabled them to avail themselves of easier ascent or partial cover. They advanced without firing, though receiving a most destructive fire of artillery and musketry, from base to summit. The officers of all grades caught the spirit of the men, and so eager were men and officers throughout the line that the crest was reached and carried at six different points almost at the same moment. The enemy was hurled from position with wonderful quickness; his artillery was captured, and in some cases turned against him as he fled. General Hooker soon swept northward from Rossville, and then the Army of the Cumberland held Missionary Ridge the whole length of its front. General Hardee's forces, opposite General Sherman, alone maintained position.
To this general result each of the four central divisions and those with General Hooker contributed, in co-ordination and harmony unprecedented in an improvised attack. Each one was successful, though each was not equally prominent in success. From General Bragg's declaration that his line was first pierced on his right,--that is, to the north of the house which he occupied as his head-quarters,--and from the observation of those occupying elevated positions, there is no room to doubt that General Woods' division first reached the summit. Sheridan's and Baird's, on the right and left, almost simultaneously gained the crest. General Woods' troops enfiladed the enemy's line to the right and left as soon as they broke through it, and the other divisions pressed against other points so quickly that General Bragg's effort to dislodge the troops who first gained his intrenchments, by sending General Bate to the right, miscarried at its very inception. After portions of the several divisions had gained the crest, many isolated contests were conducted with spirit by the enemy, but the fragments of his line were speedily brushed away.
The impulse to carry the summit of the ridge was seemingly spontaneous, though not entirely simultaneous, throughout the four divisions, and from different points several brigades passed beyond the limit fixed by General Grant's order before there was any concerted action towards a general assault. The division commanders did not arrest their troops, and for a time the corps generals did not give official sanction to their advance. The impression, indeed, so far prevailed that the movement would not be authorized, that Turchin's brigade, on the right of Baird's division, was halted when far up the ascent, and Wagner's brigade, on the left of Sheridan's division, was recalled from an advanced position by a staff-officer who was returning to General Sheridan from General Granger with the information that General Grant's order required only that the enemy's intrenched line at the base of the ridge should be carried. Soon, however, it was apparent to all that the eagerness of the troops had created a necessity superior to the limitations of orders, and this conviction gave unity and energy to an assault whose transcendent issue justified its otherwise unauthorized execution.