Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 10.
Frank Moore, Ed.

[445] and woodland nearly two miles, at which point we were halted for some hours. Here my artillery was put forward to develop the enemy's position; which it did, drawing shell and round shot upon our lines, wounding three or four of my men. We were moved hence by the right flank near a point where heavy volleys of musketry were heard, and thence by the left flank in line of battle, some three or four hundred yards, and halted in the same relative position we had occupied during the earlier part of the day, mine being the rear line of battle. At three o'clock P. M., Brigadier-Generals Clayton's and Brown's brigades successively engaged the enemy. In about thirty minutes I was ordered by Major-General Stewart to advance--General Clayton having withdrawn and Brown also passed to the rear. My line of battle was organized by placing Caswell's battalion of sharpshooters (Fourth Georgia) on the right, and in succession from that wing was the Twentieth Tennessee, Colonel T. B. Smith; Thirty-seventh Georgia, Colonel A. T. Rudler; Fifty-eighth Alabama, Colonel Bush. Jones, and Fifteenth and Thirty-seventh Tennessee, Colonel R. C. Tyler, constituting the supporting line. I had thrown out no skirmishers. The whole command moved forward with spirit and zeal, engaging the enemy hotly before it had proceeded two hundred yards--his line extending in front and to the right and left of us. A battery in front of my extreme right played constantly and with terrible effect upon that wing, until my right pressed within less than fifty paces of it, when it was rapidly removed to prevent capture. Another revealed its hydra-head immediately in the rear of this, supported by a second line, hurling its death-dealing missiles more destructively, if possible, upon our still advancing but already thinned ranks. Having driven the first line back upon its support, a fresh battery and infantry were brought to play upon my right, which, by its advanced position had become subject to an enfiladed fire, gave way, but not until Major Caswell, Colonel Smith and Colonel Rudler, the three officers commanding respectively the three right battalions, were wounded, and at least twenty-five per cent. of their numbers killed and wounded. When the right gave way the enemy sought to follow it up, and pressed his sharpshooters beyond the right flank, who, finding it well aligned and in the attitude of resistance, precipitated themselves back and out of reach. The men were easily rallied, and promptly re-formed a short distance in the rear of the point to which they had advanced. In this dash the enemy captured one of my pieces and one of my couriers. It needed, however, but a moment to retake the piece, which was handsomely done. In this contest my right retook the battle-flag of the Fifty-first Tennessee regiment, General Wright's brigade, which but a moment before had been wrested from them by superior numbers and the flank movements of the enemy. I was rejoiced to deprive him of this trophy, so recently won, and return it to its gallant owners, hallowed as it is by its baptism in the blood of Shiloh, Perryville and Murfreesboro. My left, in the meantime, composed of the Fifty-eighth Alabama, Colonel Jones, and Fifteenth and Thirty-seventh Tennessee regiments (consolidated), Colonel Tyler, not being so much harassed by the enfilade fire from the right, pressed steadily forward in fine order, driving the enemy, who contested every inch of ground with dogged and persistent obstinacy until forced beyond the Chattanooga road and several hundred yards back into the wood, thus deranging his compact lines and breaking his centre. In this charge Colonel Tyler captured three guns; and Colonel Jones participated with the Thirty-eighth Alabama, Colonel Woodruff, in the capture of three; for the particulars of which I refer to their reports. It being nearly night, and having advanced so far beyond the enemy's lines as to make them liable to a flank movement, they returned from further pursuit to the point on the battle-field to which I had ordered the Eufala light artillery, and where General Clayton and I were re-forming our shattered commands--Colonel Tyler bringing with him his captured guns, and Colonel Jones in such fine order as to elicit my public commendation. Owing to a movement of the enemy to our right, the front of General Clayton's command was changed by Major-General Stewart to meet an expected attack from that source, and my line was left fronting the Chattanooga road. General Brown's command subsequently intervened. Thus we bivouacked for the night upon the field of carnage, enveloped by the smoke of battle and surrounded by the dead of friend and foe.

Sunday morning found us in the line assumed the night previous, and, under the order of Major-General Stewart, I moved my command by the right flank five or six hundred yards. and took position forward and on the right of General Brown's brigade, but in forming the line was compelled to retire the right to an angle of about forty-five degrees on account of the proximity of the enemy, located to my right oblique. Caswell's battalion of sharpshooters, under command of Lieutenant Joel Towers, Captain Benjamin Turner having been dangerously wounded the evening before, was thrown forward and deployed at right angles with my right, to guard against a repetition of the movement of the previous evening, to turn that flank, to which we were liable, there being at that time no force sufficiently near to intervene. Having assumed this line of battle, I had a temporary barricade of logs hastily constructed, which gave partial protection against the shower of grape, canister and shell which continuously and most angrily saluted us. During the time that we were subjected to this ordeal several men and officers were killed and wounded, yet no restiveness or other evidence of demorilization was manifested.

At about nine A. M., the brigade of General Deshler was placed upon my right, prolonging