and securing the rear of Thomas.

Then the Winchester men and others about them went wild with joy.
They leaped, they danced, they sang, until they were commanded to make
ready for a new attack. Rosecrans in Chattanooga, with the most of his
army there also in wild confusion, had sent word to Thomas to retire,
to which Thomas had replied tersely: "It will ruin the army to withdraw
it now; this position must be held till night."

And he made good his resolve. The Southern masses attacked once more
with frightful violence, and once more Thomas withstood them. The field
was now darkening in the twilight, and, having saved the Union army
from rout and wreck, Thomas, impervious to attack, fell back slowly to
Chattanooga.

The greatest battle of the West, one of the most desperate ever fought,
came to a close. Thirty-five thousand men, killed or wounded, had fallen
upon the field. The South had won a great but barren victory. She had
not been able to reap the fruits of so much skill and courage, because
Thomas and his men, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, had stood in the
way. Never had a man more thoroughly earned the title of honor that he
bore throughout the rest of his life, "The Rock of Chickamauga."

Chickamauga, though, was a sinister word to the North. Gettysburg and
Vicksburg had stemmed the high tide of the Confederacy, and many had
thought the end in sight. But the news from "The River of Death" told
them that the road to crowning success was still long and terrible.