An Interview with General James B. Steedman: How I Got My Second Star at Chickamauga

Shortly after the death of General James B. Steedman in 1883, the following article recounting an 1875 conversation between the general and one of his editors after the war surfaced in the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette. The topic of their conversation was General Steedman’s celebrated role in the Battle of Chickamauga. “I asked him for the story of Chickamauga where he won his stars and the soldier title of ‘Old Chickamauga,’ of which he was so proud,” the editor stated. “He told it as coolly as if it had been a dream to him.”

 

This portrait of Major General James Blair Steedman now resides in the Local History Department of the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library.

Why, my boy, there wasn’t much to it. I was in charge of the First Division of the Reserve Corps of the Army of the Cumberland and had been stationed at Ringgold or Redhouse Bridge over the Chickamauga. My orders were explicit: “to hold the bridge at all hazards and to prevent the enemy from flanking General Thomas.”

          The enemy had disappeared from our front. The sound of cannonading and battle to the northward told me that the enemy had massed against our center and a great battle was going on. From the noise of the conflict, I judged (and rightly) that Thomas was sorely pressed. I felt that my command was needed and yet could not understand the absence of new orders. I waited impatiently enough from daylight until nearly noon hoping for some word from my commanding officer [General Gordon Granger].

          Finally, I decided to risk my neck rather than see the Union army destroyed through inactivity on my part. Calling a council of officers and men, I explained the situation, read my orders, told them my decisions, and that on my shoulders should fall whatever responsibility attached to the disobedience of orders. You know the inexorable military law is “to ask no questions, obey all orders, and accept consequences.” I knew that if my movement was a failure, my judgement mistaken, nothing less than court martial and death awaited me. But the battle was on and every fiber in me said I was wanted.

          We burned the bridge and marched by the cannons’ sound to Thomas’s aid. Through cornfields, thickets, and oak woods we made a fearful tramp for no man in the command knew the country and our only guide was the booms of the cannons. When I reported to Thomas, he was in despair at the loss of the key to his position which had been captured by General [Thomas C.] Hindman’s corps. The place was indicated to me by a flash of guns and a rattle of canister on the dry leaves of the tree under which Thomas and I stood.

This portrait of General Steedman and his staff dates from 1864 when he had command of the District of the Etowah based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. From left to right: Major John Corson Smith, General Steedman (seated), Lieutenant William B. Steedman, Major Anson McCook, and Colonel Seth B. Moe seated. 

It was a steep ascent with a densely peopled crescent ridge that lay before us. There was a forbidding thicket and an oak forest between us and the belt of rocks that marked the edge of a broad plateau on which the enemy was jubilant with victory. “There, there,” said Thomas as the guns flashed again. “Now you see the exact position. You must take that ridge.” My reply was, “I’ll do it.” In 30 minutes after we reached the field we were storming the rock of Chickamauga. It was an awful contest up that slope, every foot of which was planted with death.

As I went into battle, I met General Granger who said feelingly, “Sted, old boy, it’s going to be damned hot in there. If anything should, have you any requests to make of me?” I replied, “Yes, General Granger. If I fall in the fight, please see my body decently buried and my name spelled correctly in the newspapers” and I deliberately spelled it.

We went in with 7,500 men and only 4,000 reported for duty at the next muster. We went up, up, up till we reached the summit and planted ourselves there to stay. It was a terribly hot place and we made the plateau a lake of blood before we drove Hindman back. I rode back and reported to Thomas. I was bloody from head to foot. He clasped my hand and said with great emotion, “General Steedman, you have saved my army.” I got my starts not long afterwards and that’s about all there was of it. Yes, it was a big risk I ran but I was right and I knew it.

 

Source:

“Old Chickamauga,” Nebraska Reporter (Seward, Nebraska), December 27, 1883, pg. 1

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