Horace Greeley, The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States of America, 1860-65: its Causes, Incidents, and Results: Intended to exhibit especially its moral and political phases with the drift and progress of American opinion respecting human slavery from 1776 to the close of the War for the Union. Volume II.

[228] front of the General's cottage. The structure is a sort of sieve now-bullets have punctured it so well. But the desperadoes got no farther into town.

Battle was raging about Fort Richardson. Gallant Richardson, for whom it was named, fought his battery well. Had his supports fought as his artillerymen did, the record would have been different. The Rebels gained the crest of the hill, swarmed around the little redoubt, and were swept away from it as a breath will dissipate smoke. Again they swarmed like infuriated tigers. At last, a desperate dash, with a yell. Richardson goes down to rise no more. His supports are not on hand. The foe shouts triumphantly and seizes the guns. Tile horses are fifty yards down the hill toward Corinth. A score of Rebels seize them. The 56th Illinois suddenly rises from cover in the ravine. One terrible volley, and there are sixteen dead artillery horses and a dozen dead Rebels. Illinois shouts, charges up the hill, across the plateau into the battery. The Rebels fly out through embrasures and around the wings. The 56th yells again and pursues.

The Rebels do not stop. Hamilton's veterans, meantime, have been working quietly — no lung-work, but gun-work enough. A steady stream of fire tore the Rebel ranks to pieces. When Davies broke, it was necessary for all to fall back. Gen. Rosecrans thought it well enough to get Price in deeply. A Rebel soldier says Van Dorn sat on his horse grimly and saw it all. “That's Rosecrans's trick,” said he; “he ” s got Price where he must suffer. “ Maybe this is one of the apocrypha of battle. A Rebel soldier says it ” s truth. But Hamilton's division receded under orders — at backward step; slowly, grimly, face to the foe, and firing. Bat when the 56th Illinois charged, this was changed. Davies's misfortune had been remedied. The whole line advanced. The Rebel host was broken. A destroying Nemesis pursued them. Arms were flung away wildly. They ran to the woods. They fled into the forests. Oh! what a shout of triumph and what a gleaming line of steel followed them. It is strange, but true. Our men do not often shout before battle. Heavens! what thunder there is in their throats after victory! “They” report that such a shout was never before heard in Corinth. Price's once “invincible” now invisible legions were broken, demoralized, fugitive, and remorse-lessly pursued down the hill, into the swamps, through the thickets, into the forests. Newly disturbed earth shows where they fell, and how very often.

Gen. Van Dorn's attack was to have been simultaneous with that of Price. The Generals had arranged to carry Corinth by one grand assault. In their reconnoissance Friday evening, they had found no fort where Fort Richardson was, and they overlooked Fort Robinett. Ugly obstacles. When they drove their wedge toward Corinth, one flange on the Bolivar road, the other on a branch of the Chewalla, they intended both wings should extend together. Topographical and artificial obstructions interrupted Van Dorn. He was obliged to sweep over a rugged ravine, through dense thickets, up hill, over a heavy abatis, with his left; it was necessary for his center to dip down hill under the fire of Fort Williams, Capt. Gau's siege-guns in the rear of the town, and under heavy musketry, while his right had to girdle a ride and move over almost insurmountable abatis under a point-blank fire of both Fort Williams and Fort Robinett, supported by a splendid division of veteran troops. The latter fort had 10-pounder Parrotts, three of them — the former 30-pounder Parrotts, which devour men. It was a task to be accomplished, or a terrible failure to be recorded. Price had comparatively plain sailing, and lost no time. Van Dorn was seven or eight minutes behind time. During that precious seven minutes, Price was overwhelmed, and Van Dorn was left with a feat of desperation to be accomplished. He tried it audaciously. His men obeyed magnificently. Evidently, he relied chiefly on Texas and Mississippi; for the troops of those States were in front. The wings were sorely distressed in the entanglement on either side. Two girdles of bristling steel glistened on the waist of the ridge. Two brigades, one supporting the front at close distance, moved up solidly toward the face of the fort. The Parrotts of both redoubts were pouring shot, and shell, and grape, and canister, into them from the moment of command--“Forward — charge!” shouted clearly from the brave Col. Rogers (acting Brigadier) of Texas. They tell me it was a noble exhibition of desperate daring. At every discharge, great gaps were cut through their ranks. No faltering, but the ranks were closed, and they moved steadily to the front, bending their leads to the storm. Dozens were slaughtered while thrusting themselves through the rugged timber, but no man wavered. Onward , onward, steady and unyielding as fate, their General in front. At last, they reach the ditch. It is an awful moment. They pause to take breath for a surge — a fatal pause. Texas Rogers, with the Rebel flag in his left, revolver in his right, advanced firing, leaped the ditch, scaled the parapet, waved his banner aloft, and tumbled headlong into the ditch. A patriot's bullet had killed him in the moment of triumph. Five Texans