Gloria Maria Martinez Salazar, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA
Alan Scoboria, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada
David Spiegel, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Aaron J. Stegner, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Graham F. Wagstaff, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom
David M. Wark, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
John C. Williams, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY
Erik Woody, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Michael D. Yapko, independent practice, Fallbrook, CA
The handbook is divided into parts that cover general considerations and background knowledge, hypnosis theoretical models, hypnotic methods, specific applications, and contemporary issues. Part I includes chapters relevant to understanding the foundations of clinical hypnosis. Represented here are chapters on the definition of and rationale for using hypnosis; the fascinating history of hypnosis; the what, why, and how of measurement of hypnotizability; and the neurological underpinnings of responding during hypnosis. Part II presents the major modes and models of hypnotherapy, which include psychoanalytic and psychodynamic, dissociation, cognitive–behavioral, Ericksonian, and multimodal approaches. Parts III, IV, and V of the book describe, respectively, a variety of useful hypnotic techniques and strategies for maximizing hypnotic responsiveness, specific interventions that are used in treating a wide variety of psychological disorders ranging from anxiety disorders to dissociative identity disorders, and the application of hypnotic techniques to health and sport psychology. In Part VI, issues germane to popular images of hypnosis in our culture, training, forensic hypnosis, and understanding hypnosis from a cross-cultural perspective are discussed.
Like the first edition, this book is intended for anyone who wishes to learn about clinical hypnosis. It introduces the novice hypnotherapist to the basics of hypnotherapy and the many potential uses of hypnosis. It is thus ideally suited for use as a textbook for graduate and postgraduate courses and workshops. For the trained hypnotherapist, and even the seasoned clinician, this handbook can be used as a reference volume that contains many suggestions for applying techniques and strategies relevant to the nitty-gritty work of the practitioner. Finally, hypnosis researchers and theoreticians will find much of value in this book. We hope that the research summaries and suggestions for future studies contained herein will spur creative investigations at the interface of research and practice for years to come and infuse the artistry of clinical work with insights derived from psychological science.
REFERENCES
Alladin, A., Sabatini, L., & Amundson, J.K. (2007). What should we mean by empirical validation in hypnotherapy: Evidence-based practice in clinical hypnosis. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 55, 115–131.
Lynn, S.J., Kirsch, I., Barabasz, A., Cardena, E., & Patterson, D. (2000). Hypnosis as an empirically supported adjunctive technique: The state of the evidence. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 48, 342–361.
Montgomery, G.H., DuHamel, K.N., & Redd, W.H. (2000). A meta-analysis on hypnotically induced analgesia: How effective is hypnosis? International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 48, 138–153.
Patterson, D., & Jensen, M. (2003). Hypnosis and clinical pain. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 495–521.
Uman, L.S., Chambers, C.T., McGrath, P.J., & Kisley, S. (2006). Psychological interventions for needle-related procedural pain and distress in children and adolescents. The Cochrane Database for Systematic Reviews, 4. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD005179.pub2
FOUNDATIONS AND GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
1
AN INTRODUCTION TO CLINICAL HYPNOSIS
STEVEN JAY LYNN, IRVING KIRSCH, AND JUDITH W RHUE
Hypnosis is a word that conjures many associations. There is a certain magic in the ability of mere words to produce profound changes in a person’s mood, thoughts, and behaviors. There is a compelling quality to participants’ reports of involuntary experiences that often accompany hypnotic behaviors. And there is an almost eerie feeling of surprise and amazement when people who experience hypnosis demonstrate classical hypnotic phenomena such as positive and negative hallucinations, alterations in pain sensitivity, and amnesia on command.
No wonder then, that hypnosis has long been associated with terms such as mystery, mysticism, and the supernatural. Yet, at the same time that the media and stage hypnotists have exploited and advanced these misconceptions of hypnosis (see chap. 27), scientists have placed hypnosis on a firm empirical footing, and clinicians have devised ever more creative ways of serving their clientele with hypnotic stratagems and techniques.
No student of contemporary psychology can ignore the surge of interest in hypnosis in the past few decades. Hypnosis has always captured the attention of some of the most creative thinkers in the field of psychology, including Sigmund Freud, William James, Wilhelm Wundt, Clark Hull, T. X. Barber, and Ernest Hilgard, among others. Today, hypnosis and hypnotic phenomena are studied with state-of-the-science neuroimaging techniques (see chap. 4, this volume), hypnosis research is routinely published in premiere psychology journals, and hypnosis has informed cognitive science (and vice versa) in meaningful ways (Barnier, Dienes, & Mitchell, 2008; Raz et al., 2006; see also chap. 6, this volume). Accordingly, it seems fair to claim that the scientific community has increasingly recognized that hypnosis is a fruitful and legitimate area of scientific inquiry and that hypnosis has moved firmly into the orbit of mainstream psychology.
Clinicians have good reason to familiarize themselves with hypnosis and hypnotic methods. Reviews and meta-analytic studies consistently document the effectiveness or promise of hypnosis in treating a wide variety of psychological and medical conditions, ranging from acute and chronic pain to obesity (e.g., Brown, 2007; Brown & Hammond, 2007; Elkins, Jensen, & Patterson, 2007; Flammer & Alladin, 2007; Flammer & Bongartz, 2003; Flory, Martinez Salazar, & Lang, 2007; Lynn, Kirsch, Barabasz, Cardeña, & Patterson, 2000; Neron & Stephenson, 2007). Furthermore, meta-analyses have shown that hypnosis enhances the effectiveness of
both psychodynamic and cognitive–behavioral psychotherapies (Kirsch, 1990; Kirsch, Montgomery, & Sapirstein, 1995).
Although hypnosis is a useful adjunct to many psychotherapeutic approaches, the media and some practitioners often treat hypnotherapy as if it were a particular approach to psychotherapy, on a par with psychoanalysis, client-centered therapy, behavior therapy, and other therapeutic modalities (e.g., Smith, Glass, & Miller, 1980). In the 19th century, hypnotherapy was actually a distinct mode of treatment. Auguste Liebault (1823–1904), for example, offered his patients a choice between traditional medical treatment, for which a standard fee would be charged, and hypnotherapy, which he would administer without charge (Gravitz, 1991). In those days, hypnotherapy consisted of administering a hypnotic induction and suggesting the alleviation of the symptom for which the patient sought relief.
A careful reading of the chapters in this handbook makes it evident that this is no longer the case. Although direct suggestion of symptom relief is still used for some purposes, such as for the treatment of warts (see chap. 22) and pain (see chap, 21), it is the exception rather than the rule. More frequently, the use of hypnosis in contemporary hypnotherapy is embedded within some broader therapeutic approach. Thus, one can speak of psychodynamic hypnotherapy, cognitive–behavioral hypnotherapy, or Ericksonian hypnotherapy, as discussed in the chapters in Part II of this volume.
Just as most psychotherapists identify their orientation as eclectic, hypnotherapy often involves a blending of ideas and techniques from different theoretical perspectives. Many of the chapters in this volume devoted to the treatment of specific presenting problems include elements of psychodynamic and cognitive–behavior theory. Thus, most clinical applications of hypnosis can be referred to as eclectic hypnotherapy. As it is practiced today, hypnotherapy can be defined as the addition of hypnosis to accepted psychological or medical treatment. As such, it should be practiced only by professionals who have the appropriate training and credentials to provide the treatment that is being augmented by hypnosis.
DEFINING HYPNOSIS
Our definition of hypnotherapy assumes that one knows what is meant by the term hypnosis. But what is hypnosis? For more than a century, hypnosis was defined as a special state that is different from normal waking consciousness (American Psychological Association Division of Psychological Hypnosis, 1985; James, 1890). The media continues to popularize this view in movies, television programs, and on the Internet, depicting the hypnotized subject as deeply entranced and highly responsive to all manner of suggestions.
However, the question of whether hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness is today the subject of intense controversy among scientists (Kallio & Revonsuo, 2003). As early as the 1950s, Theodore Sarbin (1950) and, later, T. X. Barber (1969) rejected the idea that hypnotic phenomena were due to an altered state of consciousness unique to hypnosis and instead asserted that these phenomena were the direct byproduct of motivated responses to imaginative suggestions. During the 1960s and 1970s, the altered state issue was the most contentious issue in the field (Sheehan & Perry, 1976). Despite various pronouncements of convergence (e.g., most researchers only use the term hypnotic state in a descriptive sense to denote subjective changes that hypnotized persons report experiencing) in the altered state debate (Kirsch & Lynn, 1995; Spanos & Barber, 1974), the controversy has continued (for a review, see Lynn, Kirsch, & Hallquist, 2008). Indeed, contributors to this volume differ in their views of hypnosis as an altered or mundane state of consciousness, as revealed by the fact that some use the term trance descriptively to describe what transpires during hypnosis, whereas other contributors studiously avoid this term. Clearly, defining hypnosis as an altered state begs the question. The field needs a theoretically neutral definition that is not inconsistent with any prominent theories.
Fortunately, there is general agreement about the kinds of phenomena that are observed in what has been termed the domain of hypnosis (Hilgard, 1973; Kihlstrom, 2008). Many of these fascinating phenomena, such as selective amnesia and diminished perception of pain, are the direct byproducts of suggestions. In keeping with this observation, some years ago, the American Psychological Association (APA) Division of Psychological Hypnosis (1985) officially adopted the following definition:
Hypnosis is a procedure during which a health professional or researcher suggests that a client, patient, or subject experience changes in sensations, perceptions, thoughts, or behavior. The hypnotic context is generally established by an induction procedure. Although there are many different hypnotic inductions, most include suggestions for relaxation, calmness, and well-being. Instructions to imagine or think about pleasant experiences are also
commonly included in hypnotic inductions.
In actuality, practitioners use a wide variety of inductions that are described in subsequent chapters of this handbook. The reader will encounter inductions that foster a more alert or “waking” experience of hypnosis, in addition to more traditional inductions that emphasize relaxation and altered states of awareness.
Almost two decades after the first definition was crafted, the Executive Committee of the APA Division of Psychological Hypnosis (2004) revised the definition to encompass the widely used clinical technique of self-hypnosis, described as “the act of administering hypnotic procedures on one’s own” (p. 13). The reformulated definition also acknowledged that “many believe that hypnotic responses and experiences are characteristic of a hypnotic state. While some think that it is not necessary to use the word ‘hypnosis’ as part of the hypnotic induction, others view it as essential” (p. 13). The new definition also noted that responsiveness to suggestion can be assessed by standardized scales in clinical and research settings; that scores can be grouped into low, medium, and high categories; and that “the salience of evidence for having achieved hypnosis increases with the individual’s score” (p. 13). The definition of hypnosis has proven to be a controversial issue in general (e.g., Fellows, 1995; Hasegawa & Jamieson, 2002; Kallio & Revonsuo, 2003; Spiegel, 1998; Wagstaff, 1998). However, the definitions of hypnosis generated by the APA constitute a mostly theoretically neutral and useful platform for understanding hypnosis and hypnotic phenomena (Lynn & Kirsch, 2006).
Although controversy about whether hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness persists, there is broad agreement among workers in the field that many popular beliefs about hypnosis, no doubt perpetuated by the media, are not in agreement with scientific evidence. In a recent survey of popular beliefs about hypnosis, Green, Page, Rasekhy, Johnson, and Bernhardt (2006) determined that at least 40% of students in the United States endorsed the beliefs that during hypnosis people (a) “give up their free will to the hypnotist” and can be made to do things against their will, (b) are “only aware of what the hypnotist is suggesting and not aware of anything else,” (c) can be made to do things they normally would not do, (d) “can be made to tell the truth about things they would normally lie about,” and (e) respond based on the skill of the hypnotist. It is of interest to note that students sampled in Australia, Germany, and Iran hold similarly inaccurate beliefs about hypnosis.
Despite pervasive and far-reaching misconceptions about hypnosis, research has played an influential role in demystifying hypnosis. With increasing confidence, clinicians can practice with the assurance that there is an empirical basis to many of their clinical intuitions and the information they share with clients. Research-based information can be incorporated into clinical hypnosis with many clients who, before hypnotic work can begin in earnest, require education that disabuses them of
misconceptions about hypnosis that can interfere with a complete response to hypnotic suggestions (Lynn, Kirsch, Neufeld, & Rhue, 1996; Nash, 2001).
Clinicians can now rely on the following empirically derived information to educate their clients and inform their practice:
The ability to experience hypnotic phenomena does not indicate gullibility or weakness (Barber, 1969).
Hypnosis is not a sleeplike state (Banyai, 1991).
Hypnosis depends more on the efforts and abilities of the subject than on the skill of the hypnotist (Barber, 1985; Hilgard, 1965).
Subjects retain the ability to control their behavior during hypnosis, to refuse to respond to suggestions, and to even oppose suggestions (see Lynn et al., 2008; Lynn, Rhue, & Weekes, 1991).
Spontaneous amnesia is relatively rare (Simon & Salzberg, 1985); informing clients that they will be able to remember everything that they are comfortable remembering about the session can prevent its unwanted occurrence.
Suggestions can be responded to with or without hypnosis; the function of a formal induction is primarily to increase suggestibility to a minor degree (see Barber, 1969; Braffman & Kirsch, 1999; Hilgard, 1965).
Hypnosis is not a dangerous procedure when practiced by qualified clinicians and researchers (see Lynn, Martin, & Frauman, 1996).
Most hypnotized subjects are neither faking nor merely complying with suggestions (Kirsch, Silva, Carone, Johnston, & Simon, 1989).
Hypnosis does not increase the accuracy of memory or foster a literal reexperiencing of childhood events (Nash, 1987; see also chap. 29, this volume).
Direct, traditionally worded hypnotic techniques generally appear to be just as effective as permissive, open-ended, indirect suggestions (Lynn, Neufeld, & Mare, 1993; Robin, Kumar, & Pekala, 2005).
A wide variety of hypnotic inductions can be effective (e.g., inductions that emphasize alertness can be just as effective as inductions that promote physical relaxation; Banyai, 1991; see also chaps. 10 and 11, this volume).
Most hypnotized subjects do not describe their experience as “trance” but as focused attention on suggested events (McConkey, 1986).
Hypnosis is not a reliable means of recovering repressed memories, but it might increase the danger of creating false memories (Lynn, Barnes, & Matthews, 2008; see also chap. 29, this volume).
It is of interest to note that when participants experience hypnosis, it can counter many of their prior, media-derived beliefs about hypnosis. More specifically, Green (2003) discovered that after participants are hypnotized, they are less likely to believe that (a) hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness, (b) the experience of hypnosis depends on the ability of the hypnotist, (c) suggestions are so powerful that they cannot be resisted, (d) hypnotized individuals are not conscious of their surroundings, and (e) hypnosis can make subjects tell the truth about things they normally would lie about.
warts, anxiety, somatization, conversion disorders, and asthma (Lynn, Shindler, & Meyer, 2004). In chapter 3 of this volume, Barnier and Council examine the issue of the assessment of suggestibility and provide readers with a variety of practical options for evaluating suggestibility in clinical and research contexts.
INDICATIONS AND CONTRAINDICATIONS FOR THE USE OF HYPNOSIS IN THERAPY
The chapters of this volume demonstrate the wide range of clinical problems to which hypnosis can be applied. These include anxiety disorders, depression, posttraumatic stress, dissociative identity disorder, psychosomatic disorders, pain conditions, eating disorders, and smoking. Indeed, hypnosis can be used in treating virtually any condition for which a psychological intervention is indicated. Notably, each of these clinical problems was ranked highly in terms of the extent to which research on the topic will contribute to knowledge regarding clinical practice by a panel of experts in a survey commissioned by the APA Division of Psychological Hypnosis (Lynn, Matthews, & Stafford, 2008).
There are many reasons for adding hypnotic procedures to treatment plans. The hypnotic situation provides a context that facilitates active and experiential learning (Barber, 1985; see also chap. 15, this volume). Clients can detach from their everyday concerns and focus on therapeutic thoughts, images, and suggestions. Therapists can talk to clients in a deeply personal and meaningful way and can say virtually anything they believe will be beneficial (Barber, 1985, p. 349) while urging clients to transcend entrenched and self-limiting beliefs and long-standing patterns of avoidance. The goal-directed, positive nature of the encounter with the hypnotist may increase clients’ rapport with the therapist and enhance the treatment alliance (see chap. 5). For clients with positive attitudes toward hypnosis, the hypnotic context may enhance their confidence in the effectiveness of therapy and thereby produce a placebo effect, without the deception that is generally associated with placebos (Kirsch, 1990; see also chap. 7, this volume).
Moreover, hypnosis is a useful self-control technique in its own right that can promote self-soothing and build personal resources (see chap. 8). Clients can be taught cue-controlled relaxation or anchoring, as it is sometimes called, whereby they pair an image or verbal cue with a well-practiced or conditioned response to relaxation or other suggested experiences. In many of the chapters in this volume, therapists use soothing images of a safe place, or posthypnotic suggestions and selfhypnosis, to facilitate coping in everyday life, thereby generalizing treatment gains. In a related manner, hypnosis can be used to augment desensitization to fears and provide an optimum level of exposure to anxiety-eliciting stimuli in a gradual, safe, and controlled manner (Lynn, Kirsch, Neufeld, & Rhue, 1996; Schoenberger et al., 1996).
Hypnotic suggestions can also produce changes in perception among hypnotizable clients. An example of the use of this phenomenon is in the administration of suggestions to decrease the intensity of withdrawal symptoms and to increase the aversiveness of tobacco smoke in smoking cessation treatments (see chap. 24). Yet hypnosis is not a panacea. It is simply not effective with all clients, and it should be
would be considered before abreactive or uncovering work was undertaken. Clients can have intense abreactive reactions during hypnosis, as they can in nonhypnotic contexts. It has been our observation that the hypnotic context may give some clients license to express thoughts and feelings that they ordinarily would not express in psychotherapy. This can be one of the advantages of using hypnosis. But if therapists are not trained or prepared to work with clients who experience abreactions, then they ought to avoid techniques, hypnotic or otherwise, that promote regressive experiences.
It would also be wise for therapists to postpone hypnotherapy or not use hypnosis with borderline or dissociative clients who are not yet stabilized in treatment. Regressive or altered bodily experiences that often accompany hypnosis could well disrupt these clients’ psychological equilibrium. As in nonhypnotic treatment, the following questions need to be considered: Is the client’s condition sufficiently stabilized to justify treatment that focuses on abreaction or uncovering? Are there conscious or subconscious motivations to resist responsibility for current actions and to affix blame on events or persons from the past? Does the client wish to arrive at a facile understanding of his or her problems by way of viewing his or her present through the lens of a past rife with abuse?
Besides these general concerns, there are questions that relate directly to the establishment of a hypnotic context for doing uncovering work: Does the client view hypnosis as a magic cure, as a royal road to the unconscious, or as a window to the past? Does the client’s request for hypnosis to recall past events represent an attempt to control the therapy hour to avoid dealing with issues that trouble him or her in the present? In chapter 10, Gibbons and Lynn present the “nuts and bolts” of administering hypnotic inductions that are meant to introduce the reader to the use of hypnotic techniques. Many issues pertinent to the indications and counterindications of hypnosis and the management of client reactions are discussed in the chapter on the prevention and management of negative effects in hypnotherapy (see chap. 10).
If the clinician decides to proceed with hypnosis, some clients will nevertheless be ambivalent, resistant, or unable to experience hypnotic effects at all. It is, of course, impossible to know precisely how a client will respond to a hypnotic intervention prior to inducing hypnosis itself. Yet, even when hypnosis is not entirely successful, much can be learned about the client. For example, it is possible to better understand clients’ resistance or ambivalence to treatment; their creative abilities and comfort with relaxation, imagination, and fantasy; their feelings about the therapist and the therapeutic alliance; and the needs, wishes, and fears that they are projecting onto the therapist and the hypnotic relationship. Whether and how this knowledge can be exploited depend, in part, on the therapist’s acumen and the degree to which insight derived from clients’ reaction to hypnosis is relevant to the
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come down on our knees and crawl in, hence their name. They answered very well for us short fellows, but the long legged chaps found it difficult to keep their feet inside of the house. When we arrived in camp at night it was a simple matter to pitch them; every other man, nearly, was supplied with a neat little hand-ax, and all the labor required in erecting our tents was to cut two forked sticks, sharpen the ends and drive them into the ground, a long straight stick for the ridge pole, the ends of the tent buttoned together and thrown over it and staked down to the ground, and the house was ready for occupation. They answered the purpose very well for life in the field, and were tolerably comfortable.
the eye. Here, also, were the winter quarters which the rebel army had provided for themselves, thinking that we would go into winter quarters at Nashville, and perhaps that they might themselves be able to occupy that place. But they were doomed to disappointment, and neither place gave them rest for the soles of their feet. We only remained at Murfreesboro a few days when we were again ordered to move.
Chattanooga was now the objective point of the General Commanding, and thither we bent our steps as rapidly as possible. To reach that point from the position we now occupied, required a march of from sixty-five to seventy miles, over a country destitute of forage, poorly supplied with water, and narrow and difficult wagon roads. Before again commencing active operations however. General Rosecrans determined to repair the Nashville and Chattanooga rail road, to bring forward the needful subsistence and forage for the army, which it would be impossible to transport on wagons. At Stevenson, Alabama, these supplies having accumulated in sufficient quantities by the eighth of August, corps commanders were that day directed to supply their troops as soon as possible with rations and forage for a general movement. We began the march across the Cumberland Mountains on the morning of the 16th of August, 1863, and completed the movement by the evening of the 20th. We made a good part of the march after night, over the roughest roads imaginable; now winding along the side of the Tennessee River, which we could see far down below us, with the stars reflected in its bosom; now down a jump off of at least two feet, tumbling and stumbling over rocks and boulders, we wended our weary way. It was a hard march, and we were thankful when it was over. But the object of our General was accomplished, and the rebels were flanked out of Chattanooga, which had been very properly called the Gibraltar of the West. It was indeed a strongly fortified place naturally. It lays on the south bank of the Tennessee River, and was almost impregnable from the front. But the flank movement of Rosecrans was too much for the rebels, and on the eighth of September, they evacuated the place, and our army took peaceable
eatables that yard had never before seen. Chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, flour, hams, honey, grapes, potatoes, the carcases of calves, sheep and hogs, everything almost that could be thought of. On to the pile they were thrown, and each fellow, shouldering a rail, commenced his march around a tree. Granger was wild with rage; he stamped and swore "His orders had been willfully disobeyed, and, by G—d, he was going to make an example of these fellows." Calling for the sergeant of his headquarters guard, which, on that evening, happened to be from our regiment, and which, if we are not mistaken, was under command of sergeant Poage, of Co. "E.," he ordered him to go to the teamsters and get a "black-snake." But all this had not happened without the knowledge of the rest of the command, and soon quite a crowd had collected around to see the boys as they marched up under arrest, but as soon as they heard the order for the sergeant to go for the "black-snake," they hurried off to their quarters. Granger never knew how near he was death's door that evening, for the boys were about to mutiny, and the first lash that had been given, would have been the signal for the trouble to begin. The whole affair had been arranged almost in the twinkling of an eye, and as soon as the first blow had been struck, the signal would have been sounded, which would have swept Granger and his headquarters from the face of the earth. But the cooler reasoning of General Stedman and Colonel McCook at last prevailed with the maddened general, and in place of the whipping, the boys, with backs bared, were tied by the thumbs to wagon wheels, a prey to the voracious mosquito. What was ever done with that huge pile of provisions in the yard, we do not know, but are inclined to the opinion that the doughty Granger feasted on a goodly share of them. From that day on our dislike for Granger was intense; he had proved himself a tyrant, and a man of ungovernable passion, and we fairly hated him.
CHAPTER XIX.
On the evening of the 18th of September rapid cannonading was heard off to our left in the direction of Chickamauga Creek. Dispatches were soon received that Col. Minty, with his cavalry, had encountered the enemy at Reed's bridge across the Chickamauga, and was being heavily pushed. Orders were immediately issued for our brigade to move out to his support. It was almost sun down when we started, and when night overtook us the firing had ceased. It was getting dark when the head of our column ran into the rear end of a rebel wagon train moving on a road crossing ours. We were in the midst of a cedar thicket along either side of the road so close and dense that a horse could not have been turned around in it. The meeting of this wagon train was as much a surprise to us as it probably was to them, for we had no skirmishers out and were marching along in every day style. We were in a bad shape, certainly, but we will not stop now to argue about the matter. As quietly and quickly as possible the brigade was formed in line of battle at right angles with the road, and skirmishers thrown out, but no enemy was found excepting the members of a brass band, who had been following along behind the rebel wagon train. These, with their instruments on their backs, were quickly taken in "out of the wet." The skirmishers were recalled, a strong picket guard posted and the regiment proceeded to pass the night. No fires were allowed, and as quietly as possible we laid down on our arms. We had eaten nothing since noon, but we had marched rapidly and were tired, and worn, and soon were asleep. At the earliest peep of day we were awakened, not by the bugle, however, but by our officers going around and rousing up the men. Orders were given at
advanced again with wild yells. So powerful was the momentum of the assault that it pushed Brannan back to and beyond his position in the line, thus uncovering the left of Baird's division, which at once became fiercely engaged. The storm rolling from left to right, fell next upon Johnson, and almost simultaneously on Reynold's, who wavering at times, but again regaining their firmness, gave back a little but again advanced, until the troops of Brannan and Baird, rallied by their leaders, came up once more to the work. Then the order was issued for the entire line to advance, and nothing in military history exceeds in grandeur the charge of that powerful corps. Longstreet's men, from Virginia were directly opposed to the troops of Thomas, and although they fought with stubborn determination, they could not for a moment check the steady march of those veteran battalions. They had already pushed the enemy before them for three-quarters of a mile, recovering all the lost ground and all of the material of war lost in the morning, and Longstreet was threatened with annihilation, when a new danger caused him to halt. While our left was driving Longstreet's corps, Polk and Hill threw themselves impetuously upon Palmer and Van Cleve, of Crittenden's Corps, who failing to advance, left a gap between himself and Thomas. These divisions were speedily broken in pieces and their complete rout was imminent, when Davis's division came to their support, and for a time restored the fortunes of the day. But the enemy, knowing that all depended upon his making a diversion in favor of the defeated Longstreet, massed nearly the whole of his available force, hurled it upon Van Cleve and Davis, drove the former to the right and the latter to the left, and entered boldly the opening thus made. In this junction, General Rosecrans called up the division of Wood and Negley, and threw them into the gap. After a brief contest the rebels found themselves matched. An advance was ordered, and by sunset the original position of the morning was gained. During the night of Saturday to Sunday, General Rosecrans made some changes in the disposition of his forces, and the line was so far withdrawn, that it rested along a cross road running north-east and south-west and connecting the Rossville with the Lafayette road. By this change the line was
contracted by a mile, and the right wing caused to rest on a strong position at Mission Ridge. The different divisions were disposed in this order. From right to left, one brigade of Negley, Johnson, Baird, Palmer, Reynolds; two brigades of Negley, Wood, Sheridan and Davis, with the mounted brigades of Wilder and Minty covering the right flank. As before, Thomas held the left, Chittenden the centre, and McCook the right. Upon the right of General Thomas' line, as held by Reynolds and Brannan, was a slight rise in the plain, and from the top of this, the field could be commanded. It was the key to the position. During the night Thomas' troops had built a rude breast work of logs and rails for their protection. The battle of Sunday opened at 10 o'clock in the morning. The enemy repeating the tactics of the previous day by throwing themselves first upon the extreme left of the line formed by General Beatty's brigade, of Negley's division, and for two hours a fierce fire swept along the line of Thomas without his budging an inch. Again and again the rebels advancing en echilon by brigade from the cover of the woods into the open corn-field, charged with impetuous fury and terrific yells towards the breast works of logs and rails. But each time the fiery blasts from our batteries and battalions swept over and around them and their ranks were crumbled and swept away. In answer to a message from General Thomas, asking for reinforcements, which led General Rosecrans to believe that General Brannan was out of line and that General Reynold's right was exposed, orders were dispatched to General Wood to close upon Reynold's, and word was sent to General Thomas that he should be supported, even if it took away the whole corps of Crittenden and McCook. General Davis was ordered to close on General Wood, and General McCook was advised of the state of affairs, and ordered to close his whole command to the left with all dispatch. General Wood, overlooking the directions to "close up" on General Reynolds, supposed he was to support him by withdrawing from the line, and passing to the rear of General Brannan, who it appears was not out of line, but was in echilon, and slightly in rear of Reynolds' right. By this unfortunate mistake a gap was opened in the line of battle, of which the enemy took instant advantage, and striking Davis in flank and rear, as well as in front,
threw his whole division into confusion. The same attack shattered the right brigade of Wood before it had cleared the space. The right of Brannan was thrown back, and two of his battalions, then in movement to a new position, were taken in flank and thrown back through the brigades of Van Cleve, then on the march to the left, throwing his division into confusion, from which it never recovered until it reached Rossville. The rout of the right and center was now complete, and after that fatal break, the line of battle was not again reformed during the day. The army was in fact cut in two. McCook, with Davis, Sheridan and Wilder being thrown off to the right; Crittenden, except one brigade of Wood's, being broken in pieces, and Thomas, with his indomitable corps, and Johnson's division of McCook's, remaining alone upon the left. But Thomas' corps also had been fearfully shaken, and retreat was now the only resort. Retiring his command accordingly, he took up a new position along the base of Missionary Ridge, the line being so formed that the left rested upon the Lafayette road, and the right at the Gap, representing the arc of a circle, and a south-east hill about its center formed the key to the position. Here were collected the shattered remnants of the powerful corps (not a fourth of the army) which had so long breasted the fierce assaults of the enemy in the forenoon. It was certain, however, that unless assistance should speedily reach it from some quarter, it must at length succumb, for the enemy emboldened by the rout of McCook and Crittenden, was gathering his hosts to hurl against them in a last mighty effort. At this crisis Mitchell's and McCook's brigades of the reserve corps, under command of General Granger, arrived. The fight now raged around the hill with redoubled fury. General Thomas formed his troops in two lines, and as each marched up to the crest and fired a deadly volley at the advancing foe, it fell back a little way; the men lay down upon the ground to load, and the second line advanced to take their place, and so on in succession. Every attack of the rebels was repulsed, and the enemy at night fell back and abandoned the assault. And thus did twelve or fourteen thousand heroic men save from destruction the army of the Cumberland. At night General Thomas fell back to Rossville, four miles from Chattanooga. Our loss in killed, wounded and missing
reached twelve thousand; and fifty pieces of artillery and much material of war fell into the hands of the enemy. The enemy's loss also was extremely heavy. Saturday's fight resulted in a drawn battle; Sunday's in a defeat, which was only saved from utter disaster by the coolness and courage of General Thomas and his gallant command. That night our brigade marched back to Rossville and on Monday night we marched inside of the fortifications of Chattanooga, and so ended the battle of Chickamauga.
CHAPTER XX.
On the 19th of October, 1863, General Rosecrans, in General Orders, No. 242, turned over the command of the Army of the Cumberland, to Major General George H. Thomas, by order of the President. He had commanded us for nearly one year. The last words in his farewell address to the army, were: "Companions in arms, officers and soldiers, farewell, and may God bless you." We all liked "Old Rosy," as we used to call him, and very sorry to part with him, but we also knew the grand qualities of General Thomas as a commander, and we received him with open arms. And here also we received General Order, No. 1, notifying us that Major General W. T. Sherman assumed command of the Military Division of the Mississippi, embracing the Departments of the Ohio, of the Cumberland and of the Tennessee. Chattanooga was made as near impregnable as it was possible to make it. Three strong lines of defence were constructed and all the fords of the Tennessee river were closely guarded. But we were destined to have a hard time of it. The army would have to be thoroughly reorganized, and refitted. The brigade to which we belonged was ordered up to Caldwell's Ford on the Tennessee River, opposite the mouth of North Chickamauga Creek. There we remained until the battle of Missionary Ridge. Still the army was in a critical situation. The rebels had taken position on Look Out Mountain and Missionary Ridge in front of us, and were doing what they could to bombard Chattanooga, but the shells generally fell short; and on our extended and exposed line of communication, their cavalry were making frequent raids, and near a place called Anderson, in the Sequatchie Valley, they destroyed between two and three hundred wagons, about thirty of which were
loaded with ammunition, and the remainder with clothing and supplies; the mules, which they could not run off, were shot, to the number of several hundred.
Our regiment was now detached, as it were, from the rest of the brigade, and the principal duty imposed upon us was guarding Caldwell's Ford. But as all the supplies for the army had to be hauled over one line of rail road to Bridgeport, and from there carried by pack mules to Chattanooga, and as the rebel cavalry were constantly interrupting this line of communication, supplies of all kinds soon began to fall very short. The boys got irritable and peevish, they could stand a good deal of hardship, but now their rations were cut short, and they often felt hungry. There was still a little corn for the horses and mules of the regiment, but it had to be guarded with an eagle eye or it would disappear very suddenly. The boys were hungry, and were constantly appropriating the forage of the animals whenever they could find it. This matter at last became monotonous, especially to the field officers of the regiment, who saw their horses day by day assuming architectural proportions, and they ordered their colored servants to guard the feed more closely. Colonel Harmon gave his boy orders to carry the feed for his horse into his, the colonel's, tent, and put it under his bunk. "They can't get it there," said the colonel with a chuckle, "without my knowing it, you may depend, I would just like to see them try it," and he rubbed his hands with glee, thinking that at last he had solved the problem, and that the feed of his charger would be secure. In accordance with his orders the darkey carried the corn into the colonel's tent, and carefully piled it up under his bunk. The next morning when he went to get the breakfast for the horse, what was his surprise to find that the last vestige of corn was gone. Hurrying to the colonel, with the whites of his eyes glistening, and his face drawn out of all shape with wonder, he quickly stated the case: "Why, kurnel, dar aint a grain of dat ar corn lef fur de hoss, de las grain done stole by by some one, sah—shah!" For a moment the colonel was puzzled, and hardly knew what to say; but the corn was gone for a fact, and it was useless to try and find it, so turning away he carelessly
remarked: "I thought I heard something fumbling around under my bunk last night when I went to bed, but supposed it was a mouse." This circumstance afforded us much amusement. It seems that some fellow who had overhead the orders given by the colonel to his servant, had gone to the colonel's tent that night, and slyly lifting one corner of it, had thrust in his hand and quietly stolen, right from under his bed, the colonel lying on it at the time, the last "nubbin." There was no use trying to hide anything, it would surely be found by some one. But the boys thought a good deal of the colonel, and in all probability had stolen the corn just to show him that nothing was sure in war, for from this on they did not bother him, and the colonel's horse got all of his allowance.
The headquarters of the brigade was a short distance above our camp, and nearly every day Colonel McCook, or some of his staff, would go riding past, bound for Chattanooga. They would not get by the regiment, however, without their ears being saluted with such shouts as "hard tack," "sow belly," "give us our rations," etc., etc.; this annoyed Colonel McCook greatly, for the comfort of his men was always uppermost in his thoughts, and he was not at all to blame for the scarcity of rations. We knew this, but out of a pure spirit of deviltry would salute him every time he went by, with phrases like these. One afternoon he came riding up from Chattanooga, returning to his headquarters, and as he passed he was saluted with a most vigorous chorus of "hard tack," "sow belly," etc. Stopping his horse, aggravated sorely, as he properly was, and perhaps at that very time thinking of the condition of his men, he shouted back: "You may be glad to eat rubber blankets, yet." That seemed for a moment to quiet them, but directly some fellow shouted back: "If we do, you'll have to furnish 'em." This was too much, and the colonel proceeded on his way; this last remark of the boys settled him. That Colonel McCook arrived safely at his headquarters, we were soon made aware, by the receipt of an order forbidding any more such salutations, under penalty of severe punishment.
