Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 5.
Frank Moore, Ed.

[529] north and south, and opened out into the field where Loomis was posted, just where stood the group of trees I have mentioned. The Ninth brigade, Col. Harris of the Second Ohio commanding, was on the left of the lane on somewhat higher ground, partly in the open field and partly in a neck of woods, which extended into the cleared ground, and further to the left was the Twenty-eighth brigade, Col. Starkweather of the First Wisconsin, commanding.

This brigade was formed at Nashville about five weeks since, and had taken the place of the Eighth brigade when the Third division was reorganized at that city.

I missed the gallant and patriotic Eighth. Falsehood, misrepresentation, envy and malignity had driven it from the Third division, where it had previously won immortal renown and had scattered it abroad over the South. One of its regiments, the Twenty-fourth Illinois, was in this battle, however, and gloriously maintained its honor.

The Twenty-eighth brigade supported Captain Harris's Nineteenth Indiana battery.

A few of the men belonging to these brigades were killed and wounded by the fire from the rebel cannon, but generally the shot passed harmlessly over their heads. I was near one of the men who was killed at the time he was struck, and could not but regard it as a singular fatality. His name is----Robb — probably well known in Cincinnati, as he belonged to the Tenth Ohio, and was Colonel Lytle's orderly.

He was not with his own regiment at the time of his death, but with the Third Ohio, and was lying amongst the other men upon the ground.

While in this position a spherical shot struck him in the side, passed entirely through his body, and buried itself in the ground beyond.

He died instantly, and almost without a gasp. Not a man of the regiment he was with, was, in this stage of the battle, either killed or wounded.

A shell burst very near General Rousseau and his staff, to the imminent danger of the General himself, and it was this that probably gave rise to the report that he was wounded. I do not think he was hurt at all, for the next morning I saw him riding over the field in fine health and spirits, his countenance only exhibiting an expression of sadness, when he came in view of those of his brave boys who were lying stiff and cold in death.

While I was watching with intense interest the effect of our fire on the enemy, a shell came hurtling through the air and exploded in the very midst of Captain Simonson's battery, killing two of his horses and wounding a couple of his men. The next moment a case-shot tore away the head of another horse, entered his fore-shoulder and ranged through the entire length of his body.

Not a man flinched however, until the enemy's batteries opposite Loomis's and Simonson's ceased firing entirely.

In fact there was a lull in the battle about this time all over the field, but it was the lull which follows the first blast of a tempest and indicates that it is gathering its forces for a more terrible onset. Capt. Loomis's battery was now moved down the lane and took position upon the hill which lay immediately behind the one from which he had just been fighting. At the same time the infantry was moved nearer the crest of the latter, and there lay down awaiting the onset which the enemy were evidently about to make.

It was nearly two o'clock when the cannonade commenced with terrific fury along the entire line.

Several of the enemy's batteries had evidently been moved much nearer, although still under cover of certain necks of wood which extended into the open ground, toward our position. Strange discharges of musketry began to be heard, and the enemy's legions, hitherto concealed, emerged in long and formidable lines from the cover of the woods.

In half an hour afterwards, the discharges of musketry were sharp, quick, and terrific from our right to our left, where Jackson's division now fully in position, was gallantly sustaining the battle.

It was three o'clock when the rebels, hitherto unable to cause even a wavering in any portion of our line of battle, collected his chosen bands, and, under the leadership of Bragg himself, advanced determinedly toward our centre, or rather the left of our centre, in order to break, if possible, the line which our gallant soldiers everywhere so stubbornly maintained. In vain their artillery thundered within a hundred yards of us; in vain their infantry poured volley after volley into our ranks; in vain their cavalry came forward with loud shouts and in magnificent order. Their artillery was silenced by the murderous fire of our own batteries, and their cavalry advanced only to strew the ground with their corpses, and then retire in confusion.

But the attack which began upon Jackson's division, about twenty minutes after that upon Rousseau's, was more successful.

Here the infamous Buckner brought an immense force to bear against the two brigades of which Jackson's division is composed — the Thirty-third, commanded by General Terrell, and the Thirty-fourth, by Colonel Webster, of the Ninety-eighth Ohio. A strip of woods lay between the open ground in front of this division and that in front of Gen. Rousseau's, and extends very nearly back to the woods upon the left of Perryville, where the rebels had their force posted in the morning. This strip of timber formed a covered way by which the rebels stealthily advanced until they were near our lines, when, suddenly deploying to the left, they occupied the whole space in front of Jackson's division, and rushed upon it with demoniac yells.

The soldiers of the Union fought with courage never surpassed, and again and again were the advancing rebels checked and thrown into confusion. Regiment vied with regiment, and man with man, to see who should longest sustain the repeated and terrible assaults of the foe. Occasionally portions of the line would waver a little