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enemy's lines; they soon gave way and were hotly pursued by our troops.
From that point other guns were brought and put in position lower down the ridge, by order of General Ruggles, at the southwest corner of a small cleared field, when the ground north and east of the cleared land were covered with bushes and small saplings, in which the enemy had made a stand, the General ordered the artillery to fire upon them, which they did, and very soon they returned our fire with some effect.
The General now ordered the Seventeenth and Nineteenth regiments, of Louisiana volunteers, with some other infantry regiments, to march by the right flank in the direction of the Tennessee river.
In the meantime I was ordered by the General to reinforce, at that point, the artillery there.
By the time we got our guns in position, we heard the report of musketry, which we justly concluded was that of our troops sent in that direction.
We also saw troops from north and east of the small field marching in a south direction, as we supposed, to reinforce their friends.
Our guns opened fire upon them at that juncture with such unparalleled effect, that in less time than twenty minutes they were in full retreat towards Prentice's encampment, and in less than one hour Prentice and his friends were brought to the General as prisoners.
The General and his staff were sitting on their horses at the north end of the small cleared field, near where several bales of hay had been set on fire by the explosion of our guns while shooting at the enemy across the field, when the General received Prentice, and other prisoners captured at the same time with Prentice.
These are my reasons, Captain, for saying that General Ruggles was the controlling genius on that occasion.
He himself conceived the plan of concentrating the artillery at those different points before mentioned, which we all believed was the cause of Prentice and his command surrendering at the time they did. I made no notes on the occasion, and only write from recollection, and I no doubt have omitted many things that occurred during that part of the day that would be highly creditable to General Ruggles' talent, capacity and gallantry as displayed on the field on that day.
I am, Captain, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
S. S. Heard, Ex-Colonel Seventeenth Regiment Louisiana Volunteers,
