Chattanooga, Tenn.
Sept the 30th 1863
Dear Companion and friends,
(Chickamauga) I wrote you a letter a few days since, but I fear you did not get it. And knowing your anxiety to hear from me I embrace this, the first opportunity, to write again. I am safe and well, yet my wound in the cheek which I received in the battle on last Sabbath week is about well. I don’t think it will leave much of a scar. I was in another small engagement on the 23d. It was only a heavy skirmish along our picket line. Our Brigade lost 5 or 6 men killed and several wounded. There has been skirmishing with the pickets every day since the battle. We are busy fortifying around this place – working night and day and now we feel pretty confident that the whole Southern Confederacy cannot whip us out of here. It is naturally a strong place and I never saw half so much work done in so short a time as has been done here within the last 8 days. The Rebs are camped in plain view of us and our picket lines are only about 100 yards apart and very strong lines too. I don’t have any idea what they intend to do but I am very confident they will never attack us in front unless they want their whole Army swept out of existence in a single blow. You can have no idea of our strength and position. Directly in front of our camp there is over 200 pieces of artillery mounted in heavy fortifications and breastworks covering a front of less than a mile in extent and these forts and breastworks are filled with infantry besides a strong reserve infantry and artillery entrenched in their rear and in front of these works we have a clear sweep of about a mile off of which we have burned every building and fence and cut every tree. And we have dug impassable ditches and stretched stumbling wires in every direction. And this is the way it is all along our lines for miles wherever there is a possibility of an attack.
As I suppose you are better informed of the results of the Battle of the 20th than I could tell you, I shall say but little about it. Only it is a well-known fact here that we fought the flower of the Southern Army on their own ground and were driven from the field by a flank movement of the enemy yet we captured more prisoners and sustained a much smaller loss in killed and wounded than the enemy did. And it is also ascertained that we lost had an unusual proportion wounded and the enemy had an uncommon proportion killed. And they did not renew the fight the next day while we were so confused and unprepared to resist. So, I think after summing up everything it was a grand failure on the part of the combined Confederate Army to try to demoralize the Army of the Cumberland, although we were slightly repulsed I never saw men in better spirits than this Army is today. And reinforcements are daily arriving so you may count us safe.
Our little regiment is reorganizing for the present into 4 companies, D, H & K are consolidated under the command of Capt. Nelson and I am acting orderly. I find it to be a very disagreeable position. All the convalescents and detached members of the 89 have been ordered up. Some have already come. We now number about 200 men. Co D H & K united number 58. The Regiment is under the command of Capt. Henry of the 36th OVI.
We were not with our own Brigade during the battle and I have no doubt but we suffered more severely on account of it. But as we had just arrived here and could not conveniently get to our Brigade, we were temporarily placed in a new Brigade in the 21 AC commanded by Gen Granger. But we are now with our old Brigade which is honored with the name of being one of the best Brigades in the service and by special order of Gen Rosecrans we have been assigned to an interior position and exempt from working on the fortifications on account of valor shown in the late battle.
We have not heard anything from the captured portion of our regiment, except the wounded. And Rosecrans has made arrangements with the Reb Authorities by which we have got all our wounded back and I understand they are all to be sent home. Our ambulances are now busy hauling them in through the rebel lines.
I have often heard it said that no pen could describe the battlefield in time of action. And I can now say I have experienced it and I know one cannot have an idea scarcely of a battle unless they have seen one. A thousand thunders are not equal to the sound – and the shouts of the charging columns, the shrieks and groans of the dying and wounded – it appears like they will never cease to ring in my ears. But in the thickest of the fight I thought upon what might be my fate, but I placed confidence in the ruling hand of God, willing to meet my doom, let it be as it might, feeling sure that I was doing my duty and that all would be for the best. But as the battle is over and for the benefit and gratification of my family and friends only, I thank God for my preservation. And I hope I may yet be of some use in putting down this most wicked of all rebellions.
So no more,
Yours until death,
Jacob Shively.
Direct letters to Chattanooga, Tenn.
A Thousand Thunders 