Early in the morning (September 20th) we were moved to the front and formed in line of battle facing due west. A line of skirmishers was deployed and my regiment thrown forward to support it, with orders to advance and develop the position and strength of the enemy in our front. Soon the brigade advanced and I moved my regiment by the left flank to its position in line, left of the brigade. We very soon encountered a heavy line of skirmishers and drove them back, suffering a small loss and capturing a number of prisoners. Just at this time the regiment on our right moved off by the right flank, leaving us somewhat detached from the brigade, but I continued to advance in order to clear the strip of woods on our left of the enemy's sharpshooters and prevent their firing on our rear and flank, while we would otherwise have occupied a position in the open field with no enemy in our immediate front. After emerging from the woods and advancing a little beyond the main Chattanooga road, I found that I was considerably in advance and to the left of the brigade. Helm's brigade, falling back from my left, abandoned a piece of captured artillery, which Company A, Lieutenant Owens commanding—detached from my regiment— rescued and carried off the field. This left my regiment exposed to a heavy fire of grape and canister and I moved it by the right flank to join the rest of the brigade, but at the instance of Major Graves, chief of artillery, Breckinridge's division, I went to the support of a battery a little in our front. Here I was notified to join the brigade, after which we formed line of battle perpendicular to the Chattanooga road and to our former line, facing to the south, the First and Third Florida regiments on my left and the Sixtieth North Carolina and Forty-seventh Georgia respectively, on my right. With this disposition we advanced against a strong position and heavy force of the enemy until we arrived in the edge of an open field, where we halted and opened fire. The enemy poured a concentrated
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Col. W. L. L. Bowen's report is as follows:
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