General Joseph E. Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations During the Civil War

In the morning of the 27th, after a furious cannonade, the Federal army made a general assault upon the Confederate position, which was received everywhere with firmness, and repelled with a loss to the assailants enormously disproportionate to that which they inflicted. At several points the characteristic fortitude of the Northwestern soldiers held them under a close and destructive fire long after reasonable hope of success was gone. The attack upon Loring's corps was by the Army of the Tennessee; that upon Hardee's by the Army of the Cumberland. The principal efforts of the enemy were directed against Loring's right and left brigades, and the left of Hardee's corps.

The attack upon Loring's right-Scott's brigade of Featherston's division — was by troops of the Seventeenth Corps, advancing in three lines, preceded by skirmishers. They received five or six volleys from Nelson's (Twelfth Louisiana) regiment, deployed as skirmishers, in rifle-pits, six hundred yards in front of the brigade. This regiment held its ground until the first Federal line had approached within twenty-five paces. It then retired to the line of battle. The Federal troops advanced steadily, and two hundred paces from the Confederate line met the fire of Scott's infantry, and received in their flanks that of four batteries. This concentrated fire compelled them to halt. Unable to advance farther, and unwilling to retreat, they remained where they had halted almost an hour, before withdrawing from the shower of missiles.