When some of his troops told him that Bate’s Brigade had departed, Tyler ordered his troops forward after them. His men advanced about fifty yards, but then, he wrote, ‘a heavy volley of musketry was poured in upon us from a position occupied by the enemy on the Chattanooga road not more than 250 or 300 yards in my immediate front.’ As the enemy muskets cracked from the top of Brotherton Ridge, Tyler ordered his men to shout three times ‘For old Tennessee!’ and then charge. He later explained, ‘We charged them from the hill in utter confusion and fired several volleys upon them as they retired to a skirt of woods.’

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The routed Federals were in complete disarray as they fled Brotherton Ridge. Although Tyler’s troops chased them down the slope, the Rebels were soon struck by artillery fire coming from the woods to the right of them. ‘I immediately determined,’ Tyler later wrote, ‘to capture or drive [the battery] from its position. Advancing in almost a run, and with the yells of demons, we soon captured four pieces of fine artillery, the horses all having been removed or killed.’

Tyler, who had lost about eight men killed and sixty wounded in this action, suddenly grew fearful that the Yankees would strike his flank. Unaware as he was of the location of Bate’s Brigade, he hauled the captured cannons back to the regiment’s original position. The troops halted about three hundred yards east of the Chattanooga road. As darkness fell over the battlefield, Bate reported, ‘We bivouacked for the night upon the field of carnage enveloped by the smoke of battle and surrounded by the dead of friend and foe.’

The first day’s fighting had ended in a stalemate, but the second day, with Longstreet’s troops employed, the Confederates hit upon a gap in the Union center. They began to roll back both wings of the army, until on Horseshoe Ridge, with three-fifths of the army and its commanding general fleeing the battle, Maj. Gen. George Thomas held fast. From that day, Thomas was known as the Rock of Chickamauga. He retired with his troops in good order, joining Rosecrans at Chattanooga.

It was the lot of Tyler’s troops that day to attack defensive positions the Federals had prepared during the night. When Tyler was wounded in the assault, Lt. Col. Dudley Frayser took over command of the regiment, although he was also injured. Initially the 15th/37th Tennessee was repulsed; it then moved farther to the left to strike the enemy again. Despite his wound, Tyler returned to command his troops until they persuaded him to retire to the rear. The renewed attack by the 15th/37th Tennessee contributed to the collapse of the Union line, and that night Tyler’s regiment camped in the enemy works.

Both officers and enlisted men noted Tyler’s bravery and leadership during the Battle of Chickamauga. Confederate Lt. Col. Inzer wrote that ‘never did I see greater courage and daring displayed by any other than was shown by Colonel Tyler and his command. His bravery and his manner of handling his regiment on that bloody field were indeed conspicuous.’ The two days at Chickamauga were not only Tyler’s apex as a field commander but the greatest tactical victory for the Army of Tennessee. The Union army, which suffered more than sixteen thousand casualties, withdrew to Chattanooga. Bragg’s Rebel army, which lost eighteen thousand, followed and besieged the city.

While Bragg invested Chattanooga, he gave Bate divisional command and promoted Tyler to command Bate’s Brigade of Georgia and Tennessee troops. In late November, the Federal army attempted to break free. On November 24, Confederates defended their lines during the Battle of Lookout Mountain, high above the city. The next day, Union attacks continued at Missionary Ridge. Tyler’s troops defended a line near Bragg’s headquarters, on the Confederate right.

Tyler’s new brigade withstood assault after assault. When Union Brig. Gen. William B. Hazen’s soldiers attacked once more, a bullet struck Tyler in his left leg as he attempted to rally his breaking lines. With their commander struck down, the already crumbling line broke and fled. Bate recorded that ‘Our men of the extreme right gave back in some confusion, and in gallantly seeking to rally them Col. R.C. Tyler was dangerously wounded.’ The wound was so severe that surgeons amputated his leg.The Confederate army was driven from besieging Chattanooga. After this fight, the men in Bate’s former brigade began calling themselves Tyler’s Brigade, although their maimed commander no longer served with them.

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