Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 2.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[524] the mean while he had to continue fighting and manoeuvring with troops who had been under fire since morning. Bragg, in fact, did not wish to allow his adversaries time to recover from the blows he had dealt them; and although McCown's division was considerably reduced both by the fire of the enemy, and the absence of men who had dropped down from exhaustion, he did not hesitate to push it forward against the new Federal line formed by Van Cleve and Harker's brigade. Rains, whose troops had been less exposed than their comrades, was placed on the right, fronting the hill occupied by Rousseau's artillery. Liddell, McNair and Ector deployed on his left.

They had just dislodged the debris of Davis' division from the cedar wood after a hard fight, when they emerged into the plain. Received in front by the fire of the new line, which they found drawn up in force where they expected to meet only a mass of fugitives, they were taken by the oblique fire of Rousseau's guns, which Rains tried in vain to capture; he exposed his brigade to be decimated to no purpose, and was himself struck to the heart by a bullet. His soldiers hastened back to the wood, and Hardee was unable to protect the retreat of the other three brigades, which were in great jeopardy in the centre of the clearing, except by bringing all his artillery to the front, so as to occupy that of the Federals. Whilst McCown was rallying his battalions along the margin of the wood, Cleburne had come to take position on his right in front of Thomas, but he simply exchanged a few volleys of musketry with the latter, without venturing into the open space before him. At this point the Confederates were entirely exhausted, and required either rest or reinforcements.

But it was not so with the centre, where the fighting commenced much later, and where Polk's soldiers had not been on the march since daybreak, like Hardee's troops. As soon as he saw Negley driven out of the wood by Cheatham, Withers, on the right of the latter, concentrated all his forces against that portion of Palmer's division which was deployed from Round Forest to the extremity of the cedar thicket, consisting of Cruft's brigade in first line and Grose's in second line. Thomas' movement having entirely uncovered Palmer's right, the latter was soon turned by Cheatham, while a vigorous effort on the part of Withers drove