Battle of Chickamauga
Poets involved
What happened
On September 19-20, 1863, Union and Confederate forces fought near Chickamauga Creek in Georgia, in the second bloodiest battle of the Civil War, with over 34,000 casualties. The Confederate victory forced the Union army to retreat to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where it was besieged. The battle was the most significant Union defeat in the Western Theater and set the stage for the Chattanooga Campaign.
Literary impact
Herman Melville's 'On the Slain at Chickamauga' (1863) mourned the dead and reflected on the meaning of their sacrifice. Other poets, including James Maurice Thompson and Kate Brownlee Sherwood, composed ballads and elegies that captured the battle's ferocity and tragedy. The battle's status as a Confederate victory in the West made it a subject of both Confederate celebration and Union lamentation in the poetry of the era.
Source: Wikipedia
