The Battle of Chickamauga

National Military Park in Chickamauga, Georgia Where 18th Tennessee Infantry 

Was In Heat Of The Battle

The marker in the above picture is located at the place on the Chickamauga battlefield where the Confederate Army of Tennessee, under the command of General Alexander Stewart's Division of Buckner's Corps, in the most intense fighting of the two days battle at Chickamauga Creek, Georgia in September 1863, routed the Union line creating a breakthrough for the Army of Tennessee to advance. This breakthrough gave the Confederate Army the victory when General Rosecrans withdrew the Union forces from the battlefield. It was the second largest battle of the Civil War after Gettysburg in size of troops and casualties.

Brigadier General John C. Brown commanded the brigade of Stewart's Division in which the 18th Tennessee Infantry, led by Colonel Joseph Palmer, was in the heat of the battle where Company E "The Ashland City Guards" from Cheatham County, Tennessee was commanded by Captain Gideon H. Lowe. Note his name on the marker.

Later when Colonel Palmer was promoted to brigadier general, Captain Lowe was assigned to his headquarter's company, and in his stead, Lt. David Crockett Pardue was made acting captain of Company E where he served in that capacity until his capture at the Battle of Bentonville, NC in the late winter of 1865. 

In his application for a Confederate pension, mention was made by one of the soldiers in Company "E", that at the battle of Chickamauga Captain Pardue "led a charge with his arm in a sling and a leave of absence in his pocket."  He had been wounded in the January 1863 Battle of Murfreesboro  (Tennessee) and had been furloughed.  From this account it appears he had not yet recovered from his wound, but, in any event, had come to the battlefield.

Genealogy is never done; it is always a work in progress!