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"    Sound is sort of important. I was in the wrong sort of unit, &amp;quot;Light&amp;quot; Infantry, to experience Desert Storm. And in the years between when I first donned a uniform in the mid-1980s and the start of our current wars in 2001, mostly what I did was train for war. But training lacks something essential, because you are training against peers. The units you &amp;quot;fight&amp;quot; against in training usually carry the same weapons, they have the same discipline, and they generally act and react in similar manners. In war, not so much.  Intellectually I knew this, but it was not until I lived and commuted through downtown Baghdad in 2005 that this intuition was converted into observation. In Iraq (and, I can now also say in Afghanistan), you can follow what is happening with your ears. In a city, or in deep woods or broken terrain, this matters.  It was my second week in Iraq when I first grasped this reality. At the time I was &amp;quot;safe&amp;quot; within a perimeter. Although not part of a massive &amp;quot;FOB&amp;quot;, our position about 50 yards from the so-called  &amp;quot;Assassin&amp;#039;s Gate&amp;quot; was buffered, but being downtown we could hear almost any contact that took place in the city. On this occasion I happened to be outside, walking between one perimeter and another, when I heard an explosion, then a short burst of fire, then a massive explosion of gunfire that lasted at least 60 seconds. All of this was several hundred yards away, and in urban terms, meant we were in no danger. This was something happening outside. The more experienced officer walking with me explained.  &amp;quot;That was an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) hitting an Iraqi Army unit, followed by some insurgent fire, followed by the Death Blossom from the Iraqi Army guys.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Ummm, ok,&amp;quot; I replied, &amp;quot;But what is a &amp;#039;Death Blossom&amp;#039;?&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Dude, don&amp;#039;t you remember The Last Starfighter?&amp;quot;  I laughed because I did remember, and then it made sense. My peer could determine, by the sound, that all the weapons involved were Russian made, either AK-47s, or Russian-Made light machine-guns. He knew that the profile of the time (and in that place) was that an IED would be followed by small-arms fire, and that when this happened to an Iraqi Army unit their standard response was that everyone, and I mean everyone, in the entire unit/column, let loose with at least an entire magazine of AK fire, sprayed almost indiscriminately. (I need not explain that in a dense and crowded city, this was perhaps not a good idea.)  As the weeks turned into months, I too could tell what was happening (providing I myself was not there) when something popped. Explosion-silence-short bursts? That is an American unit being hit. Explosion then Death Blossom: Iraqi Army. Bursts of rifle fire, sustained over time and a period of time, with an MD-500 helo buzzing above: that was the assholes of Blackwater, barging their way into infamy. (I have  a history with them, sorry. By this day, 150 years ago, I think that Major General George Thomas knew his way around the sounds of combat as well. The evidence, overlaid with my own experiences in war, seem to confirm this. This matters because on this day and the next he is the man who would forge history from the crucible of defeat, though fighting blind, without leadership, and in the end all alone. On these days George Thomas, a proud Virginian who stayed true to his nation, transcended mere humanity and became, forever more, The Rock of Chickamauga. And I think that he did it, mostly, by listening.  The battle of Chickamauga is fairly straightforward to explain although it can be damned confusing out on the ground. Rosecrans&amp;#039;s Army of the Cumberland had maneuvered well enough to take Chattanooga on the 9th. After some consolidation they resumed their offensive, moving south and a little east into Georgia. The fight itself took place only about a dozen miles south of the city, and the border and it started on the 19th with a premature attack by Bragg&amp;#039;s confederate army. After a slugfest on the first day, Rosecrans -- bemused to be confronted when he thought that his brilliant maneuvering had sent Bragg scampering -- held a conference with his commanders. The consensus was to hold the line.  So on the morning of the 20th there was an American battle line, which stretched from North to South, generally parallel to, but well above, a small creek known as the  Chickamauga.* The rebels launched a solid attack, but it hit thin air. The American commander, Rosecrans, had screwed up.  Being an engineer, he was used to complexity, but he was not used to fluidity. The result, in my opinion, is that it was this personal flaw which saw him giving some really lame instructions to his subordinate commands, with the result that a gap appeared in his line just as the main rebel assault started, hitting the  exact same point. Before long fully two-thirds of the command started heading backwards, almost before they really got in to major pitched fighting. One element, however, stood fast. That element, the XIV Corps under Thomas, bowed back on the right, bowed back on the left, was damned near encircled, but held off an entire rebel army for most of an entire day, all by themselves.  Sound. Sound is what I believe made the difference. And, I suspect, it is one of the factors that made some generals failures and some generals legends, Thomas among the latter.  You see, on any battlefield of the gunpowder age, it is likely that you really cannot see what is happening. There is just too much damned smoke, most of the time, to gauge things visually. This is especially true at a distance. Add in broken terrain and/or woodlands, and the only sense you are left with is sound. But sound can tell you a lot. Experience helps, of course, in interpretation.  From sound alone I could determine what nationality of unit was engaged in a firefight. I could tell who was &amp;quot;winning&amp;quot; and who was &amp;quot;losing&amp;quot; (the quotes reflecting the fungible nature of any short firefight in a city). I could determine if a unit was well disciplined, or not, and if that unit was on the offensive, or defensive. The rate of fire, the volume of fire, the tempo of volleys, all of this builds a mental picture that allows you to understand, if you know what you are listening to, what is going on out of sight from where you are.  Thomas, with his strong Corps, knew from the sounds what had happened to the south of his position. He knew, from the sounds, what was happening on his own northeastern flank. And then he used military judgment to decide what he must do next.  At one critical point in the fight, when it was apparent that the rest of the entire Army was in flight to the west, back towards their base at Chattanooga, General Thomas sent an officer to determine their location and intent. Were they pulling back just a mile or two, or were they in full flight? Sound could not give him these answers. The officer assigned to the task asked a reasonable question:  &amp;quot;Where will I find you, General, when I return?&amp;quot;  Outnumbered, isolated, and facing attacks from three sides it was a reasonable question to ask the Commander of XIV Corps. Thomas&amp;#039;s reply was as simple as it was direct.  &amp;quot;Here!&amp;quot;  Yeah, big shiny brass ones. Thomas was explicit. He was holding now, he would hold through the day, he would hold into the night. He could hear the ebb and flow of the fight, and understand what was happening even though he could not see much of his beleaguered command on Snodgrass Hill. He could hear when units were slowing their fire, and understood they needed more ammunition or relief. He could hear when a rebel assault started firing more raggedly, the first step before they fell back after yet another futile attack. He processed all of this through sound and infrequent reports, and understood that he could hold, so he would hold, because he knew that if he withdrew, if he let the rebels over the ridge, they would plunge into the unprotected and disorganized rear of the rest of the Army.  General George Thomas, Virginian and loyal American, knew what it meant when he took an oath. He would keep it. I suspect that the same part of his personality is what made it possible for him to give commands that meant that when he held his ground, he really held it. In the end, despite being massively outnumbered, the Rock of Chickamauga held. That officer/courier returned, hours later, and found Thomas just where he said he would be.  In the end the battle is, rightly, considered a defeat for the Americans. Thomas was stubborn, but he was not a fool. Under the cover of darkness he withdrew his exhausted and ammo-less men in good order back toward Chattanooga, just a dozen or so miles to the west, where the rest of the Army of the Tennessee had already taken up defensive positions. But with his steadfast holding he saved that same army.  Some years later, when discussing Thomas (who died just half a decade after the war) two former rebel officers made note of Thomas&amp;#039;s character. Said the more junior, Thomas, &amp;quot;did not know when he was whipped.&amp;quot; Rebel general Joseph Johnston (arguably the second-most capable southern general after Lee) replied with the ultimate homage, phrased in a way which Thomas himself would have appreciated.  &amp;quot;Rather say,&amp;quot; Johnston noted to his junior, &amp;quot;he always knew very well when he was not.&amp;quot;  You can write to me at R_Bateman_LTC@hotmail.com, or slag me here in the comments section. I&amp;#039;ll respond either way.  *People, please, let us not get into a tizzy about the origins of the word Chickamauga. Some say it means, &amp;quot;River of Death&amp;quot; in the local Native American language while others claim that it means &amp;quot;Gathering place of Chiefs&amp;quot; in another language, and there are half-a dozen other competing theories as well. Let it go. It is a name. That is all. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a24802/battle-of-chickamauga-and-sound-091913/>