Joseph T. Derry , A. M. , Author of School History of the United States; Story of the Confederate War, etc., Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 6, Georgia
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

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[430] ordered from Knoxville to Bridgeport, Ala., where it successfully guarded the railroad communications from Chattanooga to Murfreesboro, while the balance of the army moved forward to Murfreesboro. On Christmas day, 1863, he received orders from General Bragg to bring up to the front all of his brigade that he could spare from guarding the bridges, and promptly obeying, his brigade was posted first on the right as part of the reserve and afterward was ordered to report to General Polk, at Duck river, near the Cowan house. General Polk ordered him into the fight at Cowan's house, where Withers' division had been repulsed. As Breckinridge's command, composed of three brigades, was coming up in the rear, General Jackson asked if it would not be better to wait until Breckinridge was in line, as the enemy was very strong; but General Polk replied, ‘Jackson, there's the enemy, go in.’ He went in, accordingly, and his brigade was cut to pieces. After the battle he was ordered back to Bridgeport and from there to Chattanooga, where he had charge of the communications from Atlanta to Tullahoma. Jackson's brigade, composed of the Fifth and Forty-fourth Georgia, and the Fifth and Eighth Mississippi regiments, fought with distinction at Chickamauga in Cheatham's division. The Fifth Georgia lost sixty-one per cent in that battle, the second heaviest loss of all the regiments engaged. He commanded his brigade in the battle of Missionary Ridge, and his, with General Moore's brigade, was the first to check the enemy after the Confederate lines were broken. When the army fell back to Dalton he was transferred to General Walker's division, with which he participated in the Georgia campaign up to July 1, 1864. He was then ordered with the Fifth and Forty-fourth Georgia regiments to report to Maj.-Gen. Sam Jones at Charleston, S. C.; was ordered to relieve Gen. Patton Anderson, in command of the district of Florida, at Lake City; later reported to General Mercer at Savannah in General Hardee's division;