Personal Recollections
of
Chickamauga.
A PAPER
—READ BEFORE—
The Ohio Commandery of the Military Order
—OF THE—
Loyal Legion of the United States,
BY COMPANION
James R. Carnahan,
Late Captain 86th Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry,
January 6, 1886.
CINCINNATI:
H. C. Sherrick & Co.
1886.
Personal Recollections of Chickamauga.
Companions:
Said an eminent artist, as he stood and gazed on the picture his mind,genius, and hand had wrought—a picture so wonderful in its grandeur, andin the vividness with which the subject was portrayed, “I have painted foreternity.” His picture was but the portrayal of his thoughts, his vision,as the subject had impressed him, and by his act he gave it life, and itspoke, and will ever speak to mankind. So have each of us painted in andupon our minds, pictures of the exciting scenes through which each passed,and of which he was a part, that transpired in our Country from April,1861, to the close of the war in 1865. Wonderful, grand, heroic picturesthey were that were painted day by day through those years. On the brain,the mind, the memory of each of us were they painted, not with thegraceful curves, the evenly drawn lines, and pleasing blending of colorsgiven by the professional artist in the quiet of his studio, but in thealarm that came in the sudden midnight attack of armed hosts, the burstingof the tempest of battle in the early dawn, or it was made in vividcoloring as the sun went down and closed a day of carnage and death. Thelines are heavy and deep-shaded; the figures stand out as living, movingmen and horses; the guns, and cannon, and trappings seem to be real, notpainted things. Pictures these are that all time cannot efface, nor isthere one of us to-day that would, if he could, blot them out ofexistence.
The busy marts of trade may shut them out for a while, but ever and anon,in the crowded thoroughfare and in the[Pg 4] rush and throng of men, a facemeets us that brings to the mind, like a sudden flash of light in thedarkness, scenes where that face met your gaze in the storm of battle, theeye all ablaze in the excitement of the hour. A voice comes to your earsout of the noise and turmoil of the crowded city. That voice arrests yoursteps and causes the heart to leap and throb as it has not done for years.There is a veil over the picture, or it has grown dim from the dust andheat and rush of the great metropolis. But there is something in the tonesof that voice that sets you to brushing away the dust from the picture;for you know there is a picture somewhere obscured, and at last it standsout with wondrous vividness on the canvas of your memory, and you see,back through more than a score of years that have passed since thatpicture was painted, him whose voice you have just heard as he cheered onhis men to victory, or rallied his brave comrades for another daringeffort to stem the tide of battle that was going against us. And with thatvoice and face in mind, you see, not the comrades, the companions thatgather about us to-night, with beard and hair grizzled and gray, withsteps that are halting and lame, but the boys and associates of ourboyhood day