Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 11.
Frank Moore, Ed.

[257] wound while carrying him away. The body was placed in an ambulance and slowly conveyed along the rear of the lines to the house where General Sherman, General Schofield and their staff were, where the General commanding, with head reverently uncovered, took a last look at him who had been so conspicuous among his counsellors, and upon whom he had leaned as the right arm of his strength. It was a sad hour for the Army of the Tennessee--sad for the whole Army.

It is quite impossible at this time to arrive at accurate estimates of the loss in killed wounded, and captured, because it is so early after the engagement, when there are yet many men whose wounds are not dressed, and many even unsheltered by tents. Men were carried to such places as could be found, such as were safest; no distinction between divisions and brigades could be preserved in getting them into hospitals; many of the dead were yet unburied, and some not even brought away from under the fire of the rebels, and many are missing, who may yet report themselves to their regiments. All was done for the wounded that could be; the surgeons worked at the tables all night, but in some hospitals the morning saw their task little more than half completed.

The Eleventh Iowa, belonging to the Iowa brigade, which fought so obstinately on both sides of their works, are reported to have lost about two hundred men, killed, wounded, and missing. The Sixty-fourth Illinois lost one hundred and fifty-three. Still it must be remembered that these numbers may be much reduced by the appearance of missing men.

After the violence of the shock upon the Seventeenth had passed by, and the enemy were repulsed, and a degree of quiet again restored upon the left, the enemy massed a second time for an assault upon our left, this time directing it upon the centre of the Fifteenth corps, and eventually on the left of the Twenty-third. About four in the afternoon, Cheatham's corps (Hood's old corps), advanced above the railroad with great rapidity, and charged upon our line with the same impetuosity that they had on the Seventeenth. Written words can scarcely depict the incredible audacity and the seeming total recklessness of life which characterize the rebel charges of this campaign. Here, also, as in the Seventeenth, the men had not been halted a sufficient length of time to complete perfectly their fortifications, as they had been engaged a good part of the day in feeling for the rebel position and strength. The Fifteenth corps lay extending across the railroad. General Wood's division on the right, General M. L. Smith's in the centre and on the railroad, and General Harrow's on the left. Where the line crossed the railroad there was a deep cut, which was left open and uncovered by any cross-fire, and right here was a mistake, and one which cost us much mischief. Two rebel regiments dashed right up this gorge, below the range of our musketry, and passing to the rear, separated, one regiment scaling the bank to the left, and the other to the right. They poured a destructive fire directly on the flanks of the regiments next the road, which, of course, threw them into confusion and caused them rapidly to fall back. Over the breastworks thus cleared other regiments speedily rushed, and, forming a solid column, charged along the inside of our works, literally rooting out our men from their trenches, thinking, no doubt, that when they had once dislodged them from their works they would make no further stand. The Second division, the centre of the corps, had been weakened by detaching half of Colonel Martin's brigade to the assistance of the Sixteenth on the left, and was consequently wholly dislodged from its position. Falling back a short distance into the woods, they halted, reformed, and began to deliver upon the rebels, who rushed on apparently regardless of them until they reached the First division, which occupied the right. This division immediately swung around its left, and secured a cross-fire upon the head of the rebel column, and at the same time the Second division, now fully reformed in the woods, and strengthened by the return of the detached brigade, which had come a mile at the double-quick in a broiling sun, charged upon their flank and drove them quickly over the works in confusion. Just as the rebels, while charging along the works, had reached the First division, they came out in plain view in an open field, on a ridge which confronted another about half a mile distant, on which rested the left of the Twenty-third. Immediately four pieces of Cockrill's battery, one section of the Second Missouri, two twenty-pounder Parrotts, and two twelve-pounder Napoleons, of Captain Froelich's battery, were put in position, and poured into the rebels a terrific enfilading fire of shells at short range. The effect was admirable. The rebels were scattered in the ntmost confusion. The charge upon their flank coming about the same time, put them utterly to rout.

Between the two ridges of which I have just spoken there intervenes a slight hollow, and down obliquely along the side of the one on which the rebels had appeared, our forces had constructed a line of works, from which they had just swung around in order to meet the advance of the rebels. Returning to it as the rebels were driven back by the shells, they enjoyed the sight of their discomfiture in safety. But as the rebels ran back, they soon came under cover of a strip of woods running along the ridge, and going around some distance to rear, they emerged at another point, and being half concealed by the tremendous smoke of the batteries, rushed down to the works, thinking to lie under their cover and pick off our gunners. What was their surprise, on arriving at the works, to find our boys lying thick along the other side! They had lain down out of sight, to draw the rebels on. Of course the latter could not run away, as they were exposed both to the shells and a fire in the rear from the infantry.