Letter from Orlando L. French to Lydia French

in his word- he always does when he is arround and he is always arround said he "General we dont feel like wasting our breath on that God forsaken place- we came near starving to death there once and we want to give it a wide berth in the future" at which the General smiled a loud smile and beged our pardon said he did not know that as he would not have asked for the cheer But the thing was growing momentarily interesting skirmishing had began on our right farther up the mountain which was every moment getting hotter & hotter- we were now exactly opposite Lookout point and down the mountain side a half mile from the summit our Regt was entirely detached from the rest leaving a break of thirty or forty rods The General now ordered us to advance our skirmishes and to move cautiously along to a certain point over looking + commanding the road and its approaches & to throw up some remporary breast works and to "hold this road by God" we found a few sharp shooters & straglers in our front but reached the point indicated without dificulty & were soon [parting?] protected by some temporary works - sharp shooting continued between the skirmishes but no casualties -meantime there was work being done up the mountain the enemy was making a desperate stand and were contesting every foot of the ground and Gen Carlin who was laying with his Brigade in reserve at the foot of the mountain opened on them

with his battery of four 12 pound Parrotts and his range was such that he had to throw them exactly over us or ought to have done so but many of them went low not as high as high as our heads even and some struck in our midst and exploded but no one was hurt At dusk the firing in our immediate front ceased & I relieved our skirmishers with a strong picket detail and found me a place sheltered from the cold wind built me a little fire lay down in my blanket + was soon sound asleep the last thing I heard that night was one continued roar of musketry not fifty rods from me and when I awoke at midnight wet from a drizzling rain in the early part of the night and chilled through with the cold the firing had ceased and all was quiet except the shreiks + groans of the wounded + dying who had not yet been removed from the field I was told that the fight had been closed for an hour that the Rebels had ingloriously fled having ^left their dead and many of their wounded on the field - I arranged my waiter (colored) replenished the fire and thawed put my benumbed limbs had a cup of coffee made and indulged in the luxury of a hard tack and then shiveringly dreamed of home and its loved ones - wife mother sisters + brothers all

were with me that night happy scenes happy days long gone filed past me and I reveled in this pleasure and for the time forgot (although their groans filled the night air that these rocks were stained by other husbands sons + brothers blood- oblivious to ought else I saw rise from the carnage hope + peace and with outstretched wings hover near + then with smiles of gladness and shouts of joy mount heavenward; and then I saw the deep the holy joy of the wife the mother as she welcomes the return from the battle field of her loved one who has left a true a Patriot record At early dawn I had the command under arms ready for any little tricks they might wish to play but we were not disturbed - and at 7 AM in connexion with the 84" Ills made a reconnaiscance for nearly a mile on our front but found nothing but rebel deserters took in over a hundred of these + returned Hookers command had now began the forward march to participate in the coming battle of Missionary Ridge and as our Brigade went past we took our place we gad received our horsesduring the night and I almost said that I would neve send mine to the rear again when going into an engagement but mine will not stand fire and a person presents a less conspicuous mark while on foot