Shortly I was ordered to march rapidly toward Chattanooga, and I suppose a mile or so northeast of Widow Glenn's house I met General Joseph J. Reynolds, who told me that King's Brigade of his division was broken by the enemy, and ordered me to dismount and try to stop the enemy that was pouring through our lines, which I did, and the Ninety-Second, with their Spencer rifles, easily, on three occasions, drove the enemy back in its immediate front as they emerged from the woods east of the La Fayette road; but they swarmed by my right flank in great force, and I was compelled to withdraw. I found thousands of Union troops in disorder floating off through the woods toward Chattanooga, but I sought and found the left flank of the Confederate troops that had broken through our lines, and reported to Colonel Wilder at Vinings, and was ordered by him to put my regiment in line dismounted on the left of his brigade. During the night of the 19th of September Rosecrans withdrew McCook's corps on his right, and formed a new line on the low hills southwest of Widow Glenn's, Wilder withdrawing his brigade and forming a new line south of McCook's corps; but my regiment mounted before daylight covered the entire front of Wilder's Brigade, ordered to fall back to the new line when pressed by the enemy. Daylight came; with it white flags in our front where the Confederates were burying their dead. An hour after daylight I discovered a heavy column of the enemy, in column of companies doubled on the center, slowly and silently creeping past my left flank toward the left flank of McCook's corps. I repeatedly sent him information of the approach of that heavy column of the enemy, but he testily declared that there was no truth in it, and refused to send a skirmish line of his own, that he might easily have done, and found out for himself. When Longstreet's corps sprang with a yell upon the left flank of McCook's corps, the line in my front advanced, and I retired to join Wilder as ordered. McCook's corps was wiped off the field without any attempt at real resistance, and floated off from the battlefield like flecks of foam upon a river. His artillerymen cut the traces, and leaving the guns, rode away toward Chattanooga. The rout of McCook's corps was complete. I found Wilder, who proposed to charge through Longstreet's corps with his brigade, and join Thomas on Snodgrass Hill, but Charles A. Dana, Assistant Secretary of War, rode up and ordered Wilder not to make the charge, declaring the battle was lost, and ordering Wilder to Chattanooga by the Dry Valley road. Lingering long on the field, taking up the Union hospitals at Crawfish Spring, and taking with him the abandoned artillery of McCook's corps, Wilder sullenly retired, followed by a light force of the Confederate cavalry.