[594] to be moved to his aid. Beauregard hearing, however, that Sherman was giving way, after beginning the movement, countermanded it, and moved the brigades to the right. General Johnston naturally felt a greater security as to Cleburne, because General Beauregard was in this part of the field. Colonel Drake, describing the charge of the Second Tennessee on the extreme left of Cleburne and the army, says:
With loud cheers it rose the hill and advanced on the level a short distance. ... The fire there encountered was the worst the regiment suffered during the war, except at Richmond, Kentucky, where over two-thirds of its numbers fell killed and wounded in less than ten minutes. The enemy, hidden behind logs and trees, delivered three volleys; when the Second Tennessee broke and retreated. They were rallied on Bragg's line on the opposite hill.Drake continues:
The mortification of a repulse in our first regular engagement was extreme: some wept, some cursed, and others lamented the death of some of our bravest officers and men, and not a few drifted to the rear.The major, W. R. Doak, and Captains Tyree and Bate, and two lieutenants, were killed in the assault, besides four more officers and and nearly a hundred men wounded out of 365 men on the field. But the regiment reformed, and the gallant Bate led them again to the charge. As he was crossing the creek at the bottom of the valley, a Minie-ball crushed his leg-bone and wounded his horse. He pressed on until he became too weak, when he retired. The regiment, discouraged, fell back under a heavy fire. Some of the men ran forward to the right and joined the Twenty-fourth Tennessee, which, on more favorable ground, clung to the advanced position it had won. It, too, suffered heavily, losing over 200 in killed and wounded. Pond's brigade, of Bragg's corps, came up in support, but did not attempt to cross this valley of death. The Confederate artillery was said not to have been brought to bear with sufficient effect here ; and, though the musketry-fire was kept up, no impression was made. The Comte de Paris thinks this ought to have been the chief point assailed by the Confederate army en masse; but, as it was the strongest point on the line and virtually impregnable to a direct attack, the course pursued of turning it on the right seems incomparably more judicious. At all events, being then near that point, General Beauregard ordered to the right the two brigades sent by General Johnston to Cleburne's aid; and he acted with all the lights before him. Cleburne's right aided in this, though with heavy loss. When that was accomplished, the position was no longer tenable. While Sherman was standing up so stubbornly, McClernand, on his
