opposite the center of the Confederate army at the opening of the battle, and thence to Crawfish Springs, the point from which the Union army advanced to the battle, and thence to Glass's Mills, on the Chickamauga, the left of the Confederate line of battle. The third approach is the road from the junction of the first two at Rossville, Ga., along the northern foot of Missionary Ridge, to McFarland's Gap, being the road over which the Union army advanced to Chattanooga after the battle, and forming the entrance to the northern portion of the proposed park. These are all roads which, for the most part, like those of the battle field itself, have a stony or flinty foundation, and which require comparatively little care, and all of them are to be obtained without cost to the United States.

The following are the lengths of the approaches and roads thus to be ceded to the United States without cost:

The purpose is to maintain the body of the park, which embraces the field of Chickamauga, as near as may be in its present condition as to roads, fields, forests, and houses. There have been scarcely any changes in those respects since the battle except in the growth of underbrush and timber. Almost the only work of any consequence in the restoration of the entire field to its condition at the time of the battle will be the cutting away of underbrush over a very limited area.

The roads as they now exist are the same as were used in the battle, and very little road construction will hereafter be necessary to give access to every point of interest on the field. When, therefore, once established the cost of the care of the park and its approaches will be very small.

The area which it is proposed to acquire for the park by condemnation contains, as near as may be, 7,600 acres. The land is largely forest and ridge land, though there is considerable good farming land in the tract. The average cost of the whole can not, with all improvements, exceed $20 an acre. The sum appropriated by the bill, which is $250,000,* will be ample for the complete establishment of the park, including preliminary surveys, fixing its boundaries, surfacing its roads, and ascertaining the military positions.

The purpose is to have each state which had troops engaged on the field provide the monuments for marking the positions of the troops, after the general plan heretofore pursued at Gettysburg by the Gettysburg Battle Field Memorial Association. This work will be performed at Chickamauga and Chattanooga by the Chickamauga Memorial Association, acting under the supervision of the Secretary of War. This latter association is incorporated under the laws of Georgia. Its charter specially states that it will not issue stock, and that its objects are not pecuniary gain. Its incorporators number one hundred, half of them ex-Union veterans of prominence in the battle, and the other half ex-Confederates of equal prominence on their side.

The sole expense to the United States for monuments will be those for marking the positions of the regular regiments and batteries, being only sixteen in number for both fields.

The approaches to the park which traverse Missionary Ridge can be cheaply and quickly reached from Chattanooga by four turnpikes, and by steam and electric railroads, upon which the fare is five cents. The Chickamauga field can be reached by railroad in fifteen minutes from Chattanooga, this road traversing the whole field from McFarland's Gap to Crawfish Springs. Two other railroads will add facilities for reaching other portions of the park as soon as its establishment is secured.

Your committee finds the interest in this project wide-spread. To such an extent is this true that it may properly be called national. The recent demands for the new maps of Chickamauga from every

* Reduced to and passed at $125,000.

section of the Union illustrate this fact. The Union armies of the Tennessee, the Cumberland, and the Potomac, under GENERALS SHERMAN, ROSECRANS, THOMAS, and HOOKER, all finally united under GENERAL GRANT, are equally interested in preserving the lines of this extended and notable battle ground.

On the Confederate side the armies of the Tennessee, of Northern Virginia through GENERAL LONGSTREET'S corps, of the Mississippi through GENERAL JOHNSTON'S troops, and GENERAL BUCKNER'S army from East Tennessee were all engaged.

The regular army had nine regiments and seven batteries on these fields, while the following eighteen states had troops in the Union army engaged in these movements: Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, and Tennessee. Every Confederate state had troops on these fields, while Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee contributed numerously to both armies.

As already stated, the figures show Chickamauga to rank for the numbers engaged and the time of their fighting among the most noted battles of the modern world.

WELLINGTON lost 12 per cent at Waterloo; NAPOLEON 143 per cent at Austerlitz and 14 per cent at Marengo. The average losses of both armies at Magenta and Solferino, in 1859, was less than 9 per cent. At Königgrätz, in 1866, it was 6 per cent. At Wörth, Mars-la-Tour, Gravelotte, and Sedan, in 1870, the average loss was 12 per cent.

The marvel of German fighting in the Franco-Prussian war was by the Third Westphalian Infantry at Mars-la-Tour. It took 3,000 men into action and lost 49.4 per cent. Next to this record was that of the Garde-Schützen battalion, 1,000 strong, at Metz, which lost

46.1 per 'cent. There were several brigades on each side at Chicka

mauga and very many regiments whose losses exceeded these figures for Mars-la-Tour and Metz.

The average losses on each side for the troops which fought through the two days were fully 33 per cent, while for many portions

of each line the losses reached 50 per cent, and for some even 75 per

cent.

A field as renowned as this for the stubborness and brilliancy of its fighting, not only in our own war, but when compared with all modern wars, has an importance to the nation as an object-lesson of what is possible in American fighting, and the national value of the preservation of such lines for historical and professional study must be apparent to all reflecting minds. The political questions which were involved in the contest do not enter into this view of the subject, nor do they belong to it. The proposition for establishing the park is in all its aspects a purely military project.

The Eastern armies have already the noted field of Gettysburg upon which to mark and preserve the history of their movements and their renowned fighting. To this the government has already made liberal appropriations to mark the positions of the regular forces there engaged and for other purposes.

It seems fitting that the Western armies should select a field and be assisted in preserving it by the general government. It is easy to see from the facts presented that there is no other field upon which all the armies were as fully represented. There is probably no other in the world which presents more formidable natural obstacles to great military operations than the slopes of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, while, as shown, there is no field that surpasses Chickamauga in the deadliness and persistence of its fighting.

The tactical movements were numerous and brilliant on each field and many of them remarkable. Indeed, both are as noted in this respect as in the character of the fighting.

There were present upon one or the other and in the case of most, upon both fields, GRANT, SHERMAN, THOMAS, ROSECRANS, HOOKER, SHERIDAN, AND GRANGER, of the Union army, and BRAGG, LONGSTREET, HOOD, HARDEE, BUCKNER, POLK, D. H. HILL, WHEELER, FORREST, and JOHNSTON, of the Confederate forces. The preservation of these fields will preserve to the nation for historical and military study the best efforts which these noted officers, commanding American veterans, were able to put forth.

The two together form one of the most valuable object lessons in the art of war, and one which, looking solely to the interests of the public, may properly be preserved.

Your committee, therefore, recommend the passage of the bill with the amendment on page 6, which is inserted for the purpose of enabling the Secretary of War to take advantage of the whole of the coming season in expediting the establishment of the park, it having been made to appear to your committee that much preliminary work can be done while awaiting the process of condemning the land and the action of the state legislatures in ceding jurisdiction. The accompanying map shows the outlines of the proposed park and the location. of the approaches.

[Public-No 234.]

An act to establish a national military park at the battle field of Chickamauga.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That for the purpose of preserving and suitably marking for historical and professional military study the fields of some of the most remarkable maneuvers and most brilliant fighting in the war of the rebellion, and upon the ceding of jurisdiction to the United States by the States of Tennessee and Georgia, respectively, and the report of the Attorney-General of the United States that the title to the lands thus ceded is perfect, the following described highways in those states are hereby declared to be approaches to and parts of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park as established by the second section of this act, to-wit: First-The Missionary Ridge Crest road from Sherman Heights at the north end of Missionary Ridge, in Tennessee, where the said road enters upon the ground occupied by the Army of the Tennessee under MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN, in the military operations of November twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth, eighteen hundred and sixty-three; thence along said road through the positions occupied by the army of GENERAL BRAXTON BRAGG on