James D. Porter, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 7.1, Tennessee
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

[16] was made by General Zollicoffer without the approval of General Johnston. In a dispatch to the latter, dated December 10, 1861, Zollicoffer said: ‘I infer from yours that I should not have crossed the river, but it is now too late. My means of recrossing is so limited, I could hardly accomplish it in the face of the enemy.’

General Crittenden united his two brigades, and after consulting with their commanders, decided to attack the enemy. Soon after daylight on the 19th of January, the advance was made, and after a march of nine miles, Zollicoffer in front formed his command and made the attack with the Nineteenth Tennessee. This gallant regiment charged into the woods, driving the Tenth Indiana regiment, when General Zollicoffer, under a fatal misapprehension, rode up and ordered Colonel Cummings to cease firing, believing that the attack was upon one of his own regiments. He then advanced as if to give an order, and was killed just as he discovered his mistake. This caused the Nineteenth to break its line and fall back. The Twenty-fifth Tennessee had also engaged the enemy, and Colonel Stanton was wounded and disabled at the head of the regiment which now, impressed with the same idea which had proved fatal to the brigade commander, that it was firing on friends, broke its line and fell back. Colonel Cummings, senior colonel, assumed command of the brigade; the Fifteenth Mississippi and Twentieth Tennessee were moved into action, and Carroll's brigade coming up, a general advance was made. General Crittenden in his report of the battle says: ‘Very soon the enemy began to gain ground on our left,’ when General Carroll, who was at that point, ordered ‘the Nineteenth Tennessee, now commanded by Lieut.-Col. Frank Walker, to meet this movement of the enemy, and moved the Seventeenth Tennessee to its support. The Twenty-eighth, Twenty-fifth and Nineteenth Tennessee were driven back by the enemy, and while reforming in the rear of the Seventeenth Tennessee, that well-disciplined ’