There was great mismanagement in the battle: A Wisconsin Colonel Describes Chickamauga
L ooking back on the Battle of Chickamauga, Lieutenant Colonel Ole Johnson of the 15th Wisconsin lamented to his brother that " there was great mismanagement somewhere during this battle is evident to everyone but to point where the blame rests may not be quite so easy. On Saturday, our brigade was hurried into the fight entirely unsupported on either flank and the result was that after desperate fighting and heavy losses we were driven back and then another brigade would be sent in in the same manner, and thus we were defeated in detail." Continuing his story of what happened to his regiment on September 19th, he wrote, "W hen the 25 th Illinois had passed to the rear, we became immediately engaged with the enemy and the line in our rear (after the 25 th Illinois passed over them and probably thinking that they were the last of the our troops in front of them) immediately opened fire and we were thus placed between the fires of friends and foes, suffer...