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minute the enemy, seeing the Crescents, left the guns and hurried to their first position.
When Hodgson came up he found his two guns unharmed.
Later on Ruggles' division again faced the Federals, this time the Federal right under Sherman.
The fire of the Confederates was at first light; but on coming well into range the enemy were met with so terrible a storm of musketry and artillery that they reeled, and rushing to the rear were followed nearly a mile.
Sherman himself vouched for the fact that the firing here ‘was the severest I had ever heard.’
The First Louisiana brigade, under command of Col. R. L. Gibson, of the Thirteenth Louisiana, was conspicuous for its share in the events of both days.
From an early hour on the 6th to the hour of retreat on the 7th, Gibson was everywhere in the front, with a loss in officers and men exceeding that of nearly every brigade at Shiloh.
Col. H. W. Allen, of the Fourth Louisiana, was wounded in one of the fierce charges of the 6th.
Later, at Baton Rouge, in August, he was to receive a wound which long disabled him. The Fourth lost two officers killed, Capts. C. E. Tooraen and J. T. Hilliard, with 22 men; wounded, 12 officers and 157 men. Among the deaths most deeply regretted was that of Brig.-Gen. Adley H. Gladden. General Gladden, a gallant veteran of the Mexican war, had gone out as colonel of the First Louisiana regulars.
Promoted to brigadier-general on September 30, 1861, much was hoped for from his recognized skill and courage.
The fighting continued, sharp, resolute, stubborn, throughout the early part of the 7th.
Exhausted in body, reduced in numbers, but in heart undaunted, the Confederate army found itself forced to face ever augmenting odds.
It was compelled—through Beauregard's resolve to check as long as possible his own proposed withdrawal of his forces—to show an invariably formidable front along the whole line, wherever assailed.
This,
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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