Another man who drew the enemy's fire in order to save his comrades was John Kiggins, a sergeant in one of the New York regiments. It was at the battle of Lookout Mountain on November 24, 1863. The terrible battle of Chickamauga had been fought. The Union Army had been reduced to a rabble and swept off the field, except over on the left wing where General George H. Thomas with twenty-five thousand men dashed back for a whole afternoon the assaults of double that number of Confederates and earned the title which he was henceforth to bear of the "Rock of Chickamauga." The defeated army, followed afterward by General Thomas' forces, withdrew to Chattanooga, that Tennessee battle-ground surrounded by the heights of Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain. Here the Union forces were invested on all sides by the Confederate Army under General Bragg. The supplies of the Union Army gave out. The Confederates commanded the Tennessee River and held all of the good wagon-roads on the south side of it. The Union Army was nearly starved. General Rosecrans had never recovered from the battle of Chickamauga. Not only was his nerve shattered, but he seemed to have lost all strength of will and concentration of purpose. General Grant, who had just been placed in supreme command of all the military operations in the West, decided to place Thomas in command of the Army of the Cumberland in place of the dispirited Rosecrans. He telegraphed Thomas to hold Chattanooga at all hazards. "We'll hold the town until we starve," Thomas telegraphed back.