In desperation, men tried what they knew was hopeless. All caution forgotten, they tore open the paper-covered .58’s, dumped powder in the Colt chambers, and frantically hammered the oversized balls into their guns. The guns jammed, burst, or exploded. Major Arnold McMahan, commanding the regiment since Colonel Stoughton had been carried from the field, ordered the regiment to fall back. As the men emptied their guns, they moved back over the ridge to gather in companies beneath two sheltering trees.

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It was very late in the afternoon, and the major noted with unease that the firing on the Union side had dwindled to almost nothing. Although the major couldn’t know, Thomas had accomplished his miracle. He had held the Confederates at bay long enough to allow the shattered Army of the Cumberland to retreat through McFarland’s Gap to safety in Chattanooga. Then he had gradually disengaged the XIV Corps and sent it in an orderly withdrawal to shelter behind Missionary Ridge. The men on Snodgrass Hill were part of the remnant left to keep the bruised Confederates from noticing that the battle was over. Now they, too, were to set out quietly for the gap.

The sun was slipping behind the darkening hills when a staff officer wearing colored glasses galloped over to the dazed survivors of the 21st Ohio. He shouted an order for them to get back over the brow of the hill and charge the enemy. Major McMahan, his square jaw tightening, explained that his men were out of ammunition. ‘It doesn’t make a God-damned bit of difference,’ bellowed the officer. ‘Fix bayonets and charge!’ With that, the unidentified officer wheeled his horse and rode rapidly in the direction of Chattanooga.

Major McMahan, by methods even he forgot, produced enough ammunition for one round each for the remaining men. Then the Ohioans moved out, slightly to the right of the position they had held so long. A soldier of Granger’s command, lying wounded on the field, saw them coming and wrote later:

‘While lying on the ground just as twilight was coming on…I suddenly saw a line of blue from our rear coming on the charge. It seemed to me I never saw a steadier or better line on review or dress parade. As it reached me, files dropped out to avoid treading on me, then the gap was filled and the line sent on. A few moments, and a fragment of that line came back…. It was the only time I ever saw that regiment which I soon after learned was the 21st Ohio, but I shall remember it as long as memory lasts. That charge was, as I believe, the last charge made at that battle. It was made against overwhelming numbers and hopeless from the first, but it was made with remarkable coolness and bravery.’

In the gathering dusk, the 21st waited. On either side of them lay the decimated ranks of two other regiments, the 89th Ohio and the 22d Michigan. No command had come for retreat and the Westerners would not leave the battlefield without one. In the gloom, figures could be seen advancing. Then, from the upper side of the hill, more and more men, moving warily, closed in. The 21st was surrounded, holding empty guns.

But one last stroke of luck awaited them. Peering through the dimness, the Confederates moving down the hill mistook for an instant the ranks moving up the hill for Yankees. A scattered volley of musketry erupted, and a momentary confusion ensued. Seizing their chance, almost 100 powder-blackened men of the 21st melted into the twilight. For the 116 who could not escape, surrender came, quietly and wearily.

The 100 lucky ones made their way slowly back to Chattanooga through the moonlit forest. They left 48 men dead on the field and 101 wounded scattered in a dozen different places. Of the 116 prisoners taken that evening, less than half would survive Southern prisons.

But the Army of the Cumberland had escaped. Thomas, by holding on the left with a single corps against Bragg’s entire army, had earned undying fame as the Rock of Chickamauga. Just two months later, he would command this defeated army and watch it roar up Missionary Ridge to win the most spectacular victory of the war.

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