but our fate is in the hands of God, in whom I hope.” On the 23d, his confidence was so much restored that he wired to the White House: “We hold this point, and can not be dislodged except by very superior numbers and after a great battle.”
Bragg's troops only shifted their bivouacs slightly on the 21st, so as to be nearer to water in Chickamauga Creek, buried the dead, and gathered the wounded of both sides, and collected the spoils of the field in guns, small arms, accoutrements, tents, ambulances, ammunition, and quartermaster' and commissary supplies. On the 22d they were moved some miles further down the valley, but it was only on the morning of the next day that they appeared in force on the heights along our front, after some lively skirmishes with our outposts, so that Rosecrans was mistaken in reporting their presence the day before.
The rebel Commander-in-chief addressed a congratulatory order to his army on the 22d, opening thus:
It has pleased Almighty God to reward the valor and endurance of our troops by giving to our arms a complete victory over the enemy's superior numbers . . . . . . . Soldiers, after two days of severe battle you have stormed the barricades and breastworks of the enemy, and driven before you in confusion and disorder an army largely superior in numbers.
Our own Commanding General was, of course, in duty bound to let off a counterblast. He did this in a high-flown proclamation, dated October 2, in which he told his soldiers, among other boastful flatteries:
You have made a grand and successful campaign. You have driven the rebels from Middle Tennessee. . . . You fought the combined armies of Bragg, of Johnston and the tried veterans of Longstreet's corps, and for two days held them at bay, giving them blow for blow with heavy interest. When the day closed, you held the field, from which you withdrew in the face of overpowering numbers to occupy the point for which you set out—
