O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXX/1 [S# 50] APPENDIX.--AUGUST 16-SEPTEMBER 22, 1863. --The Chickamauga Campaign. Report of Col. Gustave Kammerling, Ninth Ohio Infantry. -- 68>

CAPTAIN: I have the honor to submit the following report in reference to the part taken by my regiment in the battle of the 19th and 20th instant.

Having been ordered to escort the ammunition train of the Third Division, the Ninth Regiment Ohio Volunteers did not arrive on the battle-field before noon on the 19tlt of September, 1863. Here it took position under your direction on the left of the Second Minnesota Volunteers, on a line running obliquely from the extreme left wing of the Third Brigade. A line of skirmishers was established, but nothing seen of the enemy. Brisk firing then was heard from our right and the regiment ordered off to this direction. I passed the rear of the Second Minnesota, Battery I, Fourth U.S. Artillery, and the Eighty-seventh Indiana Volunteers, on the right of which latter regiment I was ordered to take position so as to form the right wing of the line established by the regiments and battery of the Third Brigade. Companies A and I were immediately deployed as skirmishers, the enemy vigorously advancing toward our line. As soon as the latter had arrived and was in full sight on and along the slope extending in our front I ordered my regiment to charge, which having been done with a good will and with great vigor, the enemy was driven back down the valley and beyond another crest of hills in our front, leaving a full battery behind, which they shortly before had captured from Company H, Fifth Artillery, U.S. Army. Besides the battery we took a number of prisoners, who gave themselves up. This charge cost us 63 men--1 officer and 12 enlisted men killed, 3 officers and 47 enlisted men wounded.

A short while thereafter I received Colonel Van Derveer's order to return as quick as possible to the assistance of the remainder of our brigade, which was just being hard pressed by the rebels. I marched the regiment back with all possible haste, but on my arrival at the place designated found the rebels already whipped and gone. This was about 3 p.m., and ended our work for the day. The rebels did not attempt to regain the field.

On the top of a large and commanding hill, about 2 miles distant from the above-described place, the regiment bivouacked during the night; this hill being one of the few open ridges in that neighborhood, entirely naked and not covered with woods or underbrush.

At 8 a.m. on Sunday, the 20th, we left this bivouac in accordance with orders received from brigade headquarters, the regiment marching in center column. Heavy firing was going on in and around the thick woods in front of us. For about two hours we were held in reserve of the fire line, and as such changed position accordingly. Finally, about 10 o'clock, we advanced into the woods, the enemy apparently retreating before the fire of the front lines. After a mile's march a large open corn-field was reached, and here the four regiments of the Third Brigade took position so as to give the Eighty-seventh Indiana and Ninth Ohio Volunteers the first and the Second Minnesota and Thirty-fifth Ohio the second line. The Ninth Ohio was posted on the right of the Eighty-seventh Indiana Volunteers, the whole having changed direction to the left-oblique. Heavy firing was continually kept up on our right, and soon shots coming from the woods which in our front surrounded the corn-field, indicated the presence of the enemy in said woods. This being intolerable, we advanced, charged the enemy, and gained the woods. The enemy, who at the same time were pressed by troops of the Twentieth Army Corps marching up through the woods on our right, gradually retreated and were followed up for about half a mile, when the fight came to a stand. But our left flank was unprotected, and therefore the position was at length untenable for a single regiment. Soon a rebel battery opened upon us; immediately thereafter rebel infantry in our front was seen marching off by the right flank, and so the danger to get flanked made it necessary to fall back to the former position in the corn-field. This was completed not without severe losses sustained from the enemy's fire, but the latter did not follow up beyond said woods and left us unmolested in possession of the cornfield. Meanwhile this place was shelled from the opposite side too, and I was ordered by Colonel Van Derveer to march off by the flank with skirmishers ahead and on a parallel line with the Second Minnesota Regiment, in a direction from east to west. After having marched about 1 mile through the woods we reached an open cornfield, passed across the same, and again entered the woods, which we found filled with our troops. Here we were ordered to take position along the crest of a hill-side, on the right of the Eighty-second Regiment Indiana Volunteers. The whole Third Division was concentrated on this point. The enemy were in force in our front trying to take the hill occupied by our troops, and so to cut off our communication with Chattanooga. A terrible fire was incessantly kept up by both sides. Desperate efforts were made by the rebels to gain our hill and storm our little fence breastworks, which, although hastily erected in a few moments of pause, gave a good cover to our soldiers and as such were of an immense advantage and saved many a soldier's life. In vain the rebels made charge after charge. Each was bravely repulsed, and finally just before dark the enemy abstained from their attempts and let us alone. An hour after dark our troops were quietly and unmolested marching back toward Rossville.

Our total loss sustained on the 20th amounts to the number of 185--2 officers and 33 enlisted men killed, 5 officers and 145 enlisted men wounded. The aggregate loss of killed and wounded on both days amounts to 248.

All of which is herewith respectfully submitted.

[G. KAMMERLING, Colonel, Commanding.]

[Capt. J. R. BEATTY,]

Actg. Asst. Adjt. Gen., 3d Brig., 3d Div., 14th Army Corps.