[43] the exception of what support they received from the artillery. They all fought nobly, and judging from the sound of the musketry, they never wavered from a fixed determination to gain the victory, and they did gain it. The combatants were so near to each other at one time that the powder burned their faces in the discharge of their pieces; but the underbrush was so thick that bayonets were of but little use, and a charge could hardly have been made. The most important event of the day was the death of Zollicoffer. Col. Fry of the Fourth Kentucky charged up a hill by himself upon a group of mounted officers, and fired at the one he conceived to be the chief among them; he fired two shots; both of them took effect, and Zollicoffer, one of the master-spirits of the rebellion, fell off his horse, dead. Col. Fry was, luckily, unhurt; but his horse was shot through the body, the bullet entering only a few inches behind the Colonel's leg. This must have been a deadener to all the hopes the secessionists had for victory, as from this moment begun the retreat; and so closely did our forces push upon them that they were obliged to leave their illustrious leader where he fell, by the side of the road. What were the East-Tennesseeans doing during all this engagement, with their boasted bravery? The First regiment I know but little about, except that it marched toward the edge of the woods in which the firing was going on, and disappeared from sight. As a regiment they did not fire a gun. but Lieut.-Colonel Spears, who is a whole team and a horse to let, some way got in ahead of his men and where the fighting was; he shot a few times with his revolver, and turned round to see where his men were, when he perceived an officer in between him and where his regiment ought to be, evidently trying to cut him off. But the officer — who turned out to be Lieut.-Colonel Carter--waked up the wrong passenger when he got after Spears, and the tables were turned, for instead of cutting Colonel Spears off, the Colonel took him prisoner and brought him back into the regiment. The Second Tennessee went through various and sundry evolutions; they were marched and countermarched, right-obliqued and left-obliqued, right-faced and left-faced, and brought up all standing in a brier patch. Well, finally we were formed in a line of battle, out of all harm's way, and remained so until the firing was nearly all over, when we were double-quicked to the edge of the woods, and halted again, until the firing receded and died away entirely. It is needless to comment upon the conduct of the Tennesseeans; to say what they could have done or would have done under other circumstances. Here is the fact what they did do, and that was simply nothing. As to the rest, the future will decide. Our course was now steadily forward to the main road that led to Zollicoffer's encampment on the Cumberland. I shall not attempt to describe the battle-field, the dead or the dying. Of course, in all battles, somebody must be killed, and somebody body must be wounded; this was no exception to the general rule. I shall mention only one of the dead — that one Zollicoffer. He lay by the side of the road along which we all passed, and all had a fair view of what was once Zollicoffer. I saw the lifeless body as it lay in a fence-corner by the side of the road, but Zollicoffer himself is now in hell. Hell is a fitting abode for all such arch-traitors. May all the other chief conspirators in this rebellion soon share Zollicoffer's fate — shot dead through the instrumentality of an avenging God--their spirits sent straightway to hell, and their lifeless bodies lie in a fence-corner, their faces spattered with mud, and their garments divided up, and even the hair of their head cut off and pulled out by an unsympathizing soldiery of a conquering army, battling for the right. The march was now steadily but cautiously forward. Two pieces of artillery were taken; one was crippled in the woods near the battle-ground, and the other was found stuck in the mud about a mile in the rear; also two wagons with ammunition. No incident worth mentioning occurred on the march, which was deliberately but steadily forward, with the artillery well up, until a final halt was made, about half-past 4 o'clock, within a mile of the breastworks of the famous fortifications on the Cumberland, which have been reported impregnable. Here the artillery was again planted, and set to work shelling the wonderful fortifications; and a continuous fire was kept up for nearly an hour. Every shell that was thrown we could hear burst distinctly. There was only one cannon that answered us from the breastworks, and that one sounded more like a potato pop-gun than any thing else I can liken it to, and did us no damage, as the shot never reached us. This one piece was only fired four times. Night closed in and the firing ceased. We all lay down on the wet ground, in perfect security, to rest our weary limbs, the distance we had come being over ten miles on the direct road, let alone the bushes and underbrush we went through, to say nothing about two or three dress-parades of the Second for somebody's amusement, but not our own, I can assure you. And then the roads and fields were awfully cut up, and mud was plenty, as it had rained a good part of the forenoon. Our men lay down to rest without a mouthful to eat, many of whom had eaten no breakfast; but as Captain Cross said, “The man who could not fast two days over Zollicoffer's scalp, was no man at all;” and there was no grumbling, as there was necessity for it. However, the teams came up in the night with crackers and bacon. Now here is the summary, so far as I know, up to Sunday night: we are within a mile of Zollicoffer's encampment; Zollicoffer is killed and his forces have been whipped — some two hundred of them being killed and a great many wounded; one of Crittenden's aids, a lieutenant-colonel and three surgeons, are taken prisoners, but how many more I know not; two pieces of artillery and three wagons were left, and the road was strewed with guns, blankets, coats, haversacks, and every thing
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