Lee
and Gordon's Mills is located on the west side of West Chickamauga
Creek approximately two miles to the northeast of the town
of Chickamauga, Georgia. It is at the end of Red Belt Road
off Gordon's Mill Terrace. The area appears on the Fort
Oglethorpe, Georgia/Tennessee quadrangle of the U. S. Geological
Survey maps.
Wartime view of Lee and Gordon's Mills
James Gordon, one of the largest landowners in the area,
developed the site of an earlier mill about two miles to
the northeast of Crawfish Springs, on the west bank of West
Chickamauga Creek, in 1857. This corn mill was a large two-story
white frame structure. He also erected a water-powered saw
mill nearby. This was an ideal location, being at the point
where the LaFayette Road crossed West Chickamauga Creek.
Gordon also established a general store at the mills for
the use of farmers in the surrounding area. There was a
nearby blacksmith shop, and the stage and mail passed each
week. The mills became a gathering place and social center
for the community. Gordon entered into a partnership with
his son-in-law, James Morgan Lee, who, by 1860, saw to the
actual running of the mills. James Lee's house stood on
top of a rise of ground to the west of the mill.
When the Confederate Army of Tennessee withdrew from Chattanooga
on September 6, 1863, most of the men marched through this
area on the LaFayette Road. The division in Polk's Corps
that was commanded by General Thomas Hindman camped for
some time around the mill. General Braxton Bragg also made
his headquarters in the area. Since most of his dispatches
are headed "Snow Hill," It can be assumed that he occupied
Clarissa Hunt's house. It was here that he formulated his
plans for the abortive strike against the Federal advance
at Davis' Crossroads in McLlemore's Cove on September 9
and 10. Bragg moved his headquarters to LaFayette at dusk
on September 10, where he thought he could better direct
operations in McLemore's Cove. A cavalry division, commanded
by General Frank C. Armstrong, was left there in place at
the mill.
On the afternoon of September 10, some of the Federal soldiers
in General Thomas J. Wood's command captured a runaway slave.
This "contraband," as escaped slaves were called by Federal
soldiers at the time, was interrogated by General Wood.
The slave gave an accurate account of his observations,
stating that a sizable portion of the Confederate Army,
along with its commander, Braxton Bragg, were at Lee and
Gordon's Mills. Wood was highly skeptical of the slave's
story, but mentioned it in a report to General Rosecrans.
The Federal commander responded at 1 a.m. on September 11th
by ordering a reconnaissance in force toward the mills.
General Charles G. Harker's Brigade was assigned to this
mission.
General Harker's men moved out of Rossville, marching south
on the LaFayette Road. This movement was noted by scouts
from Armstrong's command at Lee and Gordon's Mills. Harker's
soldiers had passed about three quarters of a mile south
of Rossville Gap when they encountered the Confederate cavalry
near Cloud's Store. During the ensuing skirmish the Federals
captured a mortally wounded Confederate. The dying cavalryman
confirmed the story told by the slave that there was a strong
Confederate presence at the Mills. Concerned about avoiding
"a sudden encounter with superior force," Harker moved south
with caution. When he was within about two and a half miles
of the mill, a civilian informed him that the Confederate
Infantry occupying the mill area "had left sometime in the
night or early in the morning."
General Frank G. Armstrong, commanding the cavalry at Lee
and Gordon's Mills, informed Bragg's headquarters in LaFayette
of the steady advance of the Federal troops. Noting that
his artillery was "too small to be of much service" and
that the hills on the east side of the creek commanded the
ground on the western side, Armstrong withdrew his forces
around 4:30 p.m. across the creek to a stand of timber about
a half mile east of the mills. Harker's Federals moved into
position near the mill at that time. After placing a "strong
cordon of outposts and pickets" along the western side of
the creek, Harker allowed him men to rest and make coffee.
During this break, some of the soldiers explored the buildings
around the mill complex. Colonel Emerson Opdyke, 125th Ohio
Infantry Regiment, later mentioned in a letter to his wife
that "the mills here are good and there is a large amount
of wheat stored but the rebels destroyed the machinery."
Around 6 p.m. on the 11th, Harker received a dispatch from
General Wood telling him to hold the position.
General Wood arrived with the rest of the division around
8:30 that evening. Just across the creek from the mills,
Wood could see large numbers of Confederate campfires. "Their
lights," he later stated, "reflected over a wide section
of the horizon, [and] told [me] that the foe was present
in considerable force. The next morning, on September 11,
Wood hoped to push across the creek, but thick fog and smoke
made it impossible for him to see further than a hundred
yards. In spite of the problem with visibility, Harker led
his brigade across the creek, and when he returned to the
mills claimed to have driven the Confederate cavalrymen
eastward for a mile and a half.
Wood's Division was joined at Lee and Gordon's Mills on
September 12th by the other two divisions of General Thomas
L. Crittenden's 21st Federal Army Corps. The divisions under
General John M. Palmer and Horatio Van Cleve took up positions
north of the mills, while Wood's brigades remained directly
on the site. The 3rd Wisconsin Artillery Battery also arrived
at the mills that afternoon. With orders from General Rosecrans
on September 13th directing him "to try stoutly to maintain
the position at Gordon;s Mills, but if attacked by a superior
force, to fall back slowly, resisting stoutly, to Rossville,"
General Wood "resolved to make a most stubborn resistance."
Wood directed his men to build log breastworks along the
edge of West Chickamauga Creek and across both flanks of
the division. "I took advantage of the creek, a very strong
defensible feature ..." he stated, "and barricaded my entire
front and flanks strongly."
The Confederate high command was well aware of this Federal
build-up. "On the morning of the 13th," General Daniel H.
Hill stated, "all the troops except my two divisions were
moved up to Lee and Gordon's Mills to attack Crittenden's
corps isolated at this point. The attack, however, was not
made." Otho F. Strahl's Brigade was sent forward that morning
on the La Fayette Road toward the mill.
"Our
army corps was in line of battle at 4 o'clock this a.m.,"
Lieutenant W. J. Colburn, with the 3rd Wisconsin Artillery,
wrote in his diary on the 13th. "There had been some skirmishing
this forenoon. This afternoon our Div. was ordered forward.
I went with Capt. Drury as Aide de Camp. He sent me back
to bring up Swallow's battery which I did & then Capt. Drury
who I found in the advance line of skirmishers with our
battery, He was about half way up a little hill & eighty
rods from a strip of timber. He did not go more than 15
paces before he was shot through the breast. The ball lodging
about inch under the skin in the back. I returned with Capt.
D & remained with him the rest of the day & until he was
placed in the ambulance to go to Chattanooga. The ball passed
straight through his body & though he bled but very little
his wound is dangerous if not mortal. I tried to find where
our battery was encamped but could not."
"On
the 13th," John H. Renick, 44th Indiana Infantry Regiment,
stated, "Van Cleve's division crossed the Chickamauga at
the Mills and advanced on the LaFayette Road to John Henderson's
plantation, where a sharp skirmish ensued, the rebels shelling
the whole line." Van Cleve's advance brigade passed through
the advance Federal pickets and made contact with Strahl's
Confederate brigade. The Federal skirmishers, supported
by an artillery battery, pushed up to the front line and
pushed the Confederates back for a considerable distance,
before receiving orders to withdraw. Confederate losses
are not known, and the Federals suffered 5 men killed or
wounded.
General Horatio P. Van Cleve, commanding the Third Division
in the 21st Federal Army Corps, also reported: "On the 13th
... I made a reconnaissance with my division 3 miles toward
La Fayette. We met the rebel cavalry immediately after passing
our picket line and with sharp skirmishing, drove them back."
Except for a brief reconnaissance conducted by General Harker
with two regiments on the 14th, there was no further action
of consequence until September 18. General Wood made his
headquarters in James Lee's house, west of the mill, and
his men remained in their fortified positions on the grounds.
Between 11 a.m. and noon on the 18th Wood reported the advance
of Confederate skirmishers against his right front. Confederate
infantry drove Wood's pickets back to the west side of West
Chickamauga Creek, but made no effort at that time to follow
the Federals across the stream."
"I
perceived a column of dust approaching my front on the main
LaFayette Road," General Harker observed. The ground in
that direction from Gordon's Mills is comparatively level
for a space of a thousand yards square, and free of timber;
beyond that space the timber is quite large and dense. As
the head of the column debouched from the skirt of timber,
I perceived something white, which I mistook for a flag
of truce. I therefore sent immediate word to the pickets
not to fire. I soon perceived my mistake, and as the column
approached it deployed. When in effective range of my artillery,
I directed the battery to open upon the enemy, and he at
once gave way and sought refuge in the timber."
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"As
soon as the head of his column came within range," Captain
George Estep, commanding the 8th Indiana Battery, stated,
"I ordered one section to commence firing. I could not, in
consequence of the timber in front of the banks of the river
and the heavy clouds of dust, discover the effect of the fire
... He was compelled to file his troops to the right and move
off the road."
"At
about 1 p.m.," General Wood stated "a force, apparently about
a brigade of four regiments, emerged from the wood on the
southern side of the creek, nearly opposite the center of
my position, apparently with the intention of forcing a passage
at the ford near the mills. A few well directed shots from
Bradley's battery soon forced him to relinquish this design
and seek the shelter of the woods. The enemy continued to
hover in my front all afternoon."
"September
18, our last day at the mill, was full of excitement," Lieutenant-Colonel
Wilbur F. Hindman, in Wood's Division, noted. "In the morning
a rebel battery opened viciously upon or pickets but were
soon silenced by a few well directed shots ... The brigade
formed in line at the breastworks and remained all day, the
men being permitted to retire a short distance to the rear,
one third at a time, for their meals. Firing at the front
was almost without cessation. As darkness came on we were
ordered to spend the night in the entrenchments."
"The
right wing went into an open field," John J. Hight, 58th Indiana
Infantry Regiment, later wrote, "near the bank of the mill
pond. The left wing took up a position in the edge of the
timber as flankers. The enemy was reported to be approaching
in force."
The Confederate force moving on Lee and Gordon Mills was General
Thomas Hindman's Division that had reached the John S. Henderson
plantation on the LaFayette Road. General Leonidas Polk, the
corps commander, was also present, and established his headquarters
in the Henderson house. To enable General Polk to communicate
with the rest of the army, a courier station was also established.
Hindman's advance brigades, led by Generals Zachariah Deas
and Arthur M. Manigault, had been marching much of the previous
night down the LaFayette road toward the Federal position.
"On the 18th at 8 o'clock A.M.," General Manigault later wrote,
"we reached the vicinity of Lee and Gordon's Mills ... It
was well known that no great distance separated us from our
foes, still we were not a little surprised when three or four
rifle shots whizzed over our heads, or struck near the road
on which we were marching. Without paying much regard to them,
for the stream separated us, we moved on until near the mills
... When about 1 miles from Lee and Gordon's Mills, on Chickamauga
Creek, the enemy opening on our column while on the march
from a battery on the opposite side, we were ordered to form
a line of battle fronting the enemy's position, which threw
my command, the right resting on the road, obliquely across
an open field, our front being covered by skirmishers deployed
from each regiment ... Here the men were ordered to lie down
to avoid the fire of the enemy's artillery, which had begun
to open our lines, causing a loss of 6 men in the Tenth and
Nineteenth South Carolina. This position was afterward changed,
in order to bring our right nearer to General Deas' left,
whose brigade extended beyond me to the right."
"Here
line of battle was formed," reported Colonel J. G. Coltart,
commander of the 50th Alabama Infantry Regiment, "and the
Fiftieth Alabama Regiment ordered to support Dent's battery,
which was put in position some distance in front. The battery
was placed near a house on the left of the road [probably
the Clarissa Hunt house], the regiment in rear slightly protected
by the brow of the hill. After exchanging a few rounds with
our battery the enemy retired. I had 1 man slightly wounded
in the hand by a fragment of a shell from the enemy's guns.
The brigade was now advanced to the hill immediately upon
the Chickamauga Creek, where I rejoined it with my regiment."
"We
formed our line of battle, facing the creek, a few hundred
yards from the right bank," Colonel John C. Reid, commanding
the 18th Alabama Infantry Regiment in Manigault's Brigade,
reported, "the enemy occupying the right bank and playing
on us heavily with his batteries; but, owing to the configuration
of the ground, did us little damage, wounding only 1 man."
"I
formed the regiment in line of battle south of Chickamauga
Creek," Major John N. Slaughter, 34th Alabama Infantry Regiment,
wrote, "half a mile northwest of Mrs. Hunt's residence in
a field. By orders from the brigadier-general commanding,
I threw out as skirmishers Companies E and H ... I was ordered
to conform to the movements of the Twenty-eighth Alabama Regiment
on my right. My command remained in this position two or three
hours, when it marched by the right flank and formed line
of battle; [and] retired 150 yards from the Twenty-eighth
Alabama Regiment to avoid the fire of the enemy's artillery
which swept the field in our front. In this position it rested
upon arms for the night."
On the afternoon of September 18, General James A. Garfield,
Rosecrans' Chief of Staff, visited the mill. A member of his
cavalry escort, Charles H. Kirk, of the 15th Pennsylvania
Cavalry Regiment, later wrote: "In the afternoon I went with
General Garfield, Chief of Staff, to Lee & Gordon's Mills
on the Chickamauga River. While we were dismounted and the
General was talking to General Sheridan [this may have actually
been General Wood] I was looking around to see what the place
was like. The rebel sharpshooters were annoying a battery
that was posted above the mill. Opposite there was a field
about 500 yards long and 300 yards wide. On the farther end
and two sides were thick woods, the ground being covered with
underbrush so dense that you could not see men in it. There
was a pile of rails about 100 yards from the end of the field
next to the woods and about centrally located from the sides.
While standing there I noticed a man run out of the woods
to the rail pile, then another, and another, until six or
seven of them reached it, and then opened up pretty lively
on the battery. The captain trained a gun on the rails. The
first shot went over; the next struck the pile fairly in the
center, the end being next to us. It threw the rails in every
direction and our boys cheered lustily. Out of the six or
seven men, I only saw two run away."
Throughout the afternoon artillery duel, Manigault had his
men lying on the ground; Deas undoubtedly took the same precaution.
Because of the undulating nature of the terrain on the eastern
side of West Chickamauga Creek, the Federal artillery shells
did little damage to the Confederates. Many of the Federal
shells, one Confederate officer, observed, passed over the
heads of the prone infantrymen and burst in the rear.
By dawn on September 19, Confederate skirmishers had worked
their way almost to the banks of West Chickamauga Creek. "Bivouacking
near the road that night," General Manigault reported, "we
again occupied a position near the same place, but with the
lines advanced and the left thrown forward some 300 or 400
yards on the following morning, the enemy's artillery occasionally
throwing a few shot in our neighborhood, but without effect,
our skirmishers keeping up a steady fire with those of the
enemy opposing them, suffering a small loss on their own part."
"Early
on the morning of the 19th," Colonel John C. Reid, 28th Alabama
Infantry Regiment, noted, "by orders from the brigadier general
commanding, the regiment moved closer in to the enemy, and
formed a new line a short distance from the creek and well
up to their batteries, which at intervals, kept up a vigorous
fire, but with little effect, Companies B and G engaging those
of the enemy on the opposite shore."
"The
regiment moved to the front in line of battle," Major John
N. Slaughter, 34th Alabama Infantry Regiment, stated, "through
[an] open field between one-quarter and a half-mile, then
by the left flank into a body of woods, and formed line in
support of Captain Garrity's battery, which moved up to our
front."
Around 3:00 p.m. on the afternoon of September 19th, General
Hindman received orders to break off the engagement at Lee
and Gordon's Mills and take his division to the right where
a fierce battle had been raging all day. His position was
briefly occupied by General Patton Anderson's Division and
then by General John C. Breckinridge. This division, including
elements of the famed Kentucky "Orphan" Brigade, took up positions
along the creek. "Soon after taking up the new position, I
was ordered to relieve Brig. Gen. Patton Anderson's division,
which was facing the enemy opposite Lee and Gordon's Mills.
The troops marched rapidly, yet it was late in the afternoon
before this movement was completed. The division was hardly
in position, when I received an order from the general commanding
the army to move to the right, cross the Chickamauga to a
point farther down, and occupy a position indicated."
About the same time as Hindman was ordered to leave the area,
3:00 p.m. in the afternoon, the Federal high command ordered
General Wood to vacate the position and march his division
north to the main battle area. Concerned that the Confederates
would be able to cross the creek after he left, Wood requested
that at least a brigade be supplied to guard the crossing.
General Alexander McCook, commander of the 20th Federal Army
Corps, was given the responsibility for the safety of Lee
and Gordon's Mills. General McCook assigned General Sheridan's
Division to the site. Sheridan's men briefly skirmished with
Breckinridge's Confederates across the creek before also being
ordered to the north. Sheridan left General Lytle's Brigade,
with a section of artillery, to guard the area.
Lytle placed the artillery at the ford and his men behind
the log breastworks that Wood had constructed earlier. Fortunately
for Lytle's men, Breckinridge had been withdraw soon after
their arrival. Nevertheless, the Federals had a restless night.
"We lay on our arms," a member of one of the Illinois regiments
wrote, "expecting to be called in any emergency, for we could
plainly hear the enemy busy in preparations." Lytle's Brigade
remained in the vicinity of the mill until around 3:30 a.m.
on the morning of September 20th, when they moved westward
beyond Crawfish Springs.
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Throughout
the morning and early afternoon of September 20, in spite
of the major battle raging a short distance to the north,
the area around Lee and Gordon's Mills remained relatively
quiet. The calm was broken about 3:00 p.m. when Confederate
General Joseph Wheeler's cavalry began advancing toward the
mills. Facing the Confederates were two Federal cavalry brigades
from the command of General Robert Mitchell. General Mitchell
had been ordered to protect "at all hazards" the Federal hospitals
and wagon trains at Crawfish Springs, less than two miles
west of Lee and Gordon's Mills. Most of Wheeler's cavalrymen,
dismounted, forded the creek north of the mill. The 4th Alabama
Cavalry Regiment, on the extreme left of Wheeler's line, waded
the waist-deep stream just below the mill dam.
John A. Wyeth, a member of the 4th Alabama Cavalry Regiment,
described the crossing. "We moved alongthe easterly bank of
the Chickamauga, and, although we ran our horses all the way,
we lost valuable time before we dismounted to advance on foot
at Lee & Gordon's Mill ... As we began the advance our regiment
was on the extreme left of our line, and when we struck the
Chickamauga we waded the stream just below the Lee and Gordon
mill dam. Hoping to get over dry, a number of us started to
run across the dam; but an officer shouted: 'Get off! They're
going to rake you with grapeshot," and we leaped into the
water like so many bull frogs. Where I waded it was not quite
waist-deep. We learned in a few minutes that we could have
gone over the dam dry-shod and in perfect safety. Down near
the water's edge we reformed our line, and as we climbed the
bank to the crest of the ridge in our front every one was
alert and at great tension."
The Confederate cavalrymen who crossed the creek north of
the mill had a more difficult time. "Having dismounted," a
member of the 4th Tennessee Cavalry Regiment wrote, "we moved
down the road to the Chickamauga in column. Fording the stream
near the mill, we formed a line of battle on the opposite
bank in the edge of a low, level beech wood, and placing our
skirmishers a short distance in front, advanced through the
woods. The enemy knew we were coming, and kept up an incessant
shelling of the woods, some of the men being injured by limbs
of trees torn off by the cannon balls. We had advanced but
a short distance before the skirmishers became hotly engaged,
which was the signal for a rapid movement, and we swept through
the woods driving the enemy before us. They rallied at a fence
in the edge of the woods and delivered an effective volley
and fell back across a little field to a new line behind a
fence and on the edge of another woodland along an eminence
where their artillery was planted. As our line emerged from
the woods into the open space, this battery, shotted with
grape, and the line behind the fence armed with seven-shooting
rifles, opened upon us and for a time a perfect hail storm
of deadly missiles filled the air. Being commanded to lie
down, we did so for a few minutes, and then arose and charged
across the field. Just here we sustained our heaviest loss
and in a few moments of time. Our recollection is that the
Fourth Tennessee had forty men shot down as we arose from
the ground. As we rushed across the field, the line at the
fence broke, and as they ran off many were killed and wounded.
Quite a squad of them surrendered in a body. We were struck
here with the gallantry of a Federal officer. He was on horseback,
and, with drawn saber, was attempting to hold his men to their
position. He was killed and his body fell into our hands.
Papers upon his person indicated that he was a colonel of
a Pennsylvania regiment. We pursued a half mile further, and
... drove them beyond Crawfish Spring ... We have learned
since that we were fighting the division of General George
Crook. Both sides lost quite a number in killed and wounded.
Where a stand was made, they lay thick upon the ground. The
line of attack for a mile was well defined [by bodies]. But,
really, though we gained the fight, our loss probably was
as great as theirs."
After several hours of sustained skirmishing, Wheelers men
pushed on the edge of Crawfish Springs. There they captured
the Federal hospitals, a large number of wounded Federal prisoners
and a number of ordnance wagons. "After detailing a guard
to look after the captured," the 4th Tennessee Cavalryman
continued, "the balance of the command formed a line and were
marched back to our horses. As we passed back to re-cross
the Chickamauga the road was full of ambulances and litters
bearing off the killed and wounded. Here was presented that
other phase of the grim-visaged war, sickening to think about;
friends and comrades dead and dying who a few hours before
were full of life and soldierly enthusiasm; men, with their
pale, ashy countenances turned toward the skies. Such scenes
dissipate the excitement the advance creates. A friend who
was mortally wounded recognized us as we passed, and seeming
to want to say something, we stopped and took his hand. Pressing
it warmly and fixing his glassy eyes upon us he said: 'Let
my people at home know that I died like a true soldier.' He
died that night, and his body still rests somewhere on the
field his valor helped to win ... We have seen paintings depicting
the horrors of the battlefield, and which we supposed were
overdrawn; but this idea was dispelled at Chickamauga, and
we appreciate the fact now that the imagination cannot always
do it justice."
Although the fighting around Lee and Gordon's Mills was over,
soldiers continued to occupy the area for some time. Following
the Confederate defeat on Missionary Ridge, the area around
the mills became the winter quarters camp for the Federal
troops under Colonel Daniel McCook. Members of the 86th Illinois
Regiment in McCook's command who were Masons used the second
floor of the mill as a Masonic Lodge at this time. On April
23, 1864, Colonel McCook was advanced to the third degree
of the Order in a Masonic ceremony at the mill. McCook's men
left their camps around the mill on May 3, 1864, going to
join Sherman for the Georgia campaign. Over the next several
days numerous Federal commands passed near the mill on their
way to join Sherman. The 58th Indiana Infantry Regiment passed
on May 12. John J. High, the regimental chaplain, later wrote:
"We bivouacked just before reaching the mill. The is resumed
[after two hours rest] and the Chickamauga is crossed, just
below the mill dam. The mill is running for the citizens,
but they have little to be ground."
James Morgan Lee, Gordon's son-in-law, continued to operate
the mill after the war. When it burned in 1867, Lee rebuilt
the mill as the structure that currently stands on the site.
Many veterans, from both armies, visited the mill in later
years. One of these was the cavalryman from the 4th Tennessee
Cavalry Regiment who was quoted above, who visited in 1887.
"We have had a desire to visit these scenes ever since the
war closed," he stated. Soldiers are rushed upon fields of
battle, and hurried away without knowing anything about it,
always leaving a desire to see it again. Besides, they are
not in a state of mind at the time to take in the situation
really as it is, and sometimes many exaggerated impressions
are left. It was just twenty-four years ago, [and] at the
same hour of the day, when we last saw this portion of the
field, where Harrison's brigade made their fight, yet many
things were true to the impression left, and what a rush of
buried memories it resurrected! The old mill, where we crossed
the Chickamauga, is still there, though very much dilapidated.
The woodman's axe has leveled the dense beech grove on the
north side, through which we moved to the attack. A few scattering
trees are still standing to indicate the character of the
timber that stood upon the ground. Now it is an enclosed field,
upon which is growing in a rich luxuriance 'the tall yellow
corn.' We tried to follow the line of our advance and suppose
we did so, from the fact that the timber cleared away, the
high ground beyond; upon which the enemy's battery was located,
is plainly to be seen. We imagined that we found the little
hillock on the far edge of the wood land where, when we were
ordered to lie down, the enemy's shot sprinkled us with gravel.
We cut a cornstalk as a memento from the spot where so many
of our men were shot down."
James T. Holmes, who had been at the mill as a member of the
44th Ohio Infantry Regiment with Wood's Division in 1863,
came back in 1897, after the National Military Park had been
established. While visiting the southern end of the battlefield,
he noted: "The monuments and tablets continue on up to Lee
and Gordon's Mill -- still standing -- still running, for
that matter, and still owned by the Lee estate. We passed
our [wartime] camp which was across the road, a little to
the northwest of the mill and stopped on top of the rise of
ground immediately west of the mill where the Lee house stood
during the war and still stands. It was General Wood's headquarters
on the night of September 18, and the General with his wife
and daughter, or the latter, was there quite recently. The
road ran around the hill to the left, nearer the mill, in
that 'elder day.'"
Lee and Gordon Mill as it appears today.
After the death of James Lee in 1889, the mill became part
of the Lee estate. For a time Tom Lee was its general manager,
and then it stood idle for several years until it was purchased
by the Wallace brothers in 1929. The mill was operated by
the Wallace brothers until May, 1968. Once more it stood idle
and neglected for several years. It was recently purchased
by Frank Pierce, who rebuilt the dam and restored the mill
to full operating condition. Until his recent death, Mr. Adair
Brotherton, a descendant of one of the families living on
the battlefield in 1863, was the general manager. The site
is now controlled by the city of Chickamauga and the mill
is open to the public.
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