[Editor's Note: In keeping with my desire to combine the historical with gaming, this account of the Orphan Brigade at Chickamauga, written by a member of the 4th Kentucky regiment is reprinted from an old booklet (undated) in my collection entitled "Reminiscences of a Soldier of the Orphan Brigade". Lt. Young's story will add flavor to the scenario on Horseshoe Ridge, and perhaps give a boost to the morale of your miniatures! It covers the fighting on the second day.] Longstreet's Virginians had come out to show the Western army how to fight and they were now learning that Rosecrans' Western veterans could give instructions in the art of war as well as they, and that they were not facing the aliens and wage soldiers of the Army of the Potomac. They also found, as the battle progressed, that the Western army of the South knew as well and were as willing to "Stand up Johnnie" and give and take blow for blow as they..... Meantime the "Orphans" were on the move toward the front and facing the enemy's moving column on the Chattanooga Road, which led to Rossville and near Glass' Mill, at which place the artillery of Breckinridge's division, commanded by the gallant Major Graves, engaged the enemies in one of the fiercest artillery duels it was my pleasure to witness during the war. I say pleasure advisedly, for it was a magnificent sight to see from where I was stationed, Graves moving among his men and directing their every action, which was done with an admirable celerity and precision that was perfectly charming. I must here do Graves the honor to say that he was the most perfect military man I ever saw. But this was but the prelude to the play of the morrow; both parties seeming (after a half hour's engagement) to say we will settle tomorrow. "Sunday is a better day." Shifting our position to Lee and Gordon's Mill, further down the Chickamauga, in the afternoon, we here awaited developments and that night made a long detour and crossed at Alexander's Bridge, several miles down the river. Next morning we found ourselves on the extreme right of the dividing line of the stage of action marked out by the respective commanders for the grand tragedy that day to be enacted upon the stage of war. Early, very early, the 4th Kentucky skirmishers (and I here glory in the fact) had the honor of firing the first shots in the opening that day Here the old and somewhat sacrilegious saying of "Hell broke loose in Georgia" was fully and forcefully emphasized by the almost continuous thundering of 200 cannons that made the very earth tremble, besides the constant rattle of musketry and shouts of more than a hundred thousand combatants determined on each other's destruction.....Reviewing the incidents of the great battle and the part played by the Kentucky Confederates I return to the skirmish line of the 4th Kentucky, which covered the front of the Orphan Brigade and which was commanded by Col. Joe Nuckols, who was wounded at the very outset of the engagement and forced to leave the field. This was the beginning of that chapter in the history of the Orphan Brigade, which took the lives and blood of so many noble Kentuckians to write. In the first and desperate onset, led by the noble and intrepid Helm, whose name is a household word with almost all Kentuckians, fell here, together with Graves, Hewitt, Dedman, Daniel, Maderia and other officers of the line, and many splendid men of the 2nd and 9th regiments, who paid with their lives tribute to Mars and added to Kentucky's old traditional glory and renown. Three regiments on the right, 4th KY, 6th KY, and 41st Alabama, swept everything before them -- the enemy being in the open field. But the 2nd and 9th encountered the enemys' breastworks and were repulsed with terrible slaughter. Here was where the officers just mentioned fell in one of the most desperate struggles of the day. Here "Pap Thomas"' veterans took advantage of their works and exacted deep and merciless toll. More than once during the day was this position assailed by other bodies of Confederates with similar results. About the middle of the afternoon the assembling of Cheatham's and Walker's division in conjunction with Breckinridge warned us that the fatal moment had arrived and the hour of desperation was at hand. The old veteran needs no one to tell him when a crisis is approaching, he instinctively and otherwise comprehends the meaning of these movements and nerves himself for the desperate work before him. His countenance would convince the stoic of what his mind contained, in modern parlance he "understands the game." When the signal gun was fired we knew its meaning, so also did the enemy. Then three solid lines in solid phalanx, desperate and determined men, moved forward on the Federal stronghold to be met by a withering and blighting fire from the enemy behind his works. But so furious and desperate was the onslaught that Thomas' veterans, who had withstood all previous attempts to dislodge them, could no longer face the line of gleaming bayonets of the Confederates as they leaped over the breastworks the Federals had so successfully defended up to that hour. Some surrendered, others made their escape and still others met their doom —many not hearing the shouts of the victorious Confederates as they rushed over and among them. This was the culmination of the struggle. Similar movements with similar results were taking place simultaneously all along the line, closing the most stupendous struggle of the war. But at this particular point and at Snodgrass Hill, where the 5th Kentucky contributed additional and unsurpassed glory to Kentucky's part in the great battle, were the keys to Rosecrans' position, and here the fighting was the hardest and the losses heaviest. First Charge In the first charge in the morning where the right of the brigade was so successful, we captured a section of the enemy s artillery. The writer seized the trunnion of one of the guns and with assistance turned it on them while the other was turned by others of our men; but we could find no ammunition to fire them and were deprived of the anticipated glory of firing on the enemy as they fled from the field. I wish here, and in my feeble way, to lift my hat to do honor to the gallantry of the captain commanding that battery (who I learned was from Indiana) as doing the most daring and chivalrous act I ever saw performed by an enemy during my entire war experience. Both his lieutenants and a number of his men having been killed before he abandoned his guns, which were in a battery just on the West side of the Chickamauga road and in the face of us Confederates, who had reached the East side of the road, he dashed into the road and past us, lifting his hat and waving us a salute that would have put to shame a Chesterfield or Prince Rupert. The act was almost paralyzing and not a man of the fifty or more who fired at him at point blank range touched him or his horse. If there is such a thing as a charmed life, this captain must have possessed it on that occasion. If living, I would gladly travel miles to shake his hand. Our next move was to unite our seperated line which we did by retiring later on to the point from where we started. During the occasional lulls in the musketry firing, the artillery from left to right and especially on the left about Snodgrass Hill, was thundering defiance and sending death into each other's ranks that seemingly made old earth shake from center to circumference, set the birds to flight, caused reptiles, lizzards [sic] and all manner of wild animals to flee from the wrath of murderous man, among which was a cotton—tail deer that was seen by some of the men running in a bewildered and dazed manner in the rear of the contending lines, not knowing which way to flee or what it all meant. The enemy routed, the conflict ceased --about dark -- with the Orphans (those left) on the West side of the Chickamauga road, some of the men playfully astride the enemy's guns -- several in number -- that had been abandoned at this point, others prostrate on the ground resting and recounting incidents of the day, all glad enough that it was over. 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