December 3.
In compliance with orders from Major-General Steedman, I abandoned the works built the day previous and fell back to a line indicated, nearer the city.
In the new position, the right rested at Judge Trimble's house, and the line extending northward across the Murfreesboro pike, the left resting near Major Lewis' house.
A substantial line of earthworks, with a protecting line of palisades and an abatis of brush in front, was speedily constructed.
During the day, the Eighteenth Ohio battery (Captain Ayleshire, commanding) was assigned to me for duty.
A strong redoubt was built for the artillery at a point where the line crossed the Murfreesboro turnpike.
My command occupied this line until the general assault upon the enemy.
The position was materially strengthened from day to day by the construction and raising of a dam across Browne's Creek, at the bridge below, on the Lebanon turnpike.
The creek ran nearly
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parallel to the line of works, and about two hundred yards in front of the abatis. It became, as the depth of water increased, a material impediment in the way of an assault.
My command performed about four thousand five hundred days work in the construction of this dam. Lieutenant-Colonel Grosvenor principally superintended its construction, in obedience to orders from district headquarters.
Major Roatch, commanding battalion, Fourteenth army corps, was seriously wounded while superintending a fatigue party at the dam, and the services of this meritorious officer were thereby lost to his command during the residue of the campaign.
The following statement exhibits the number of officers and men comprising the command, on leaving Chattanooga, and the formation of battalions and brigades temporarily made, to wit:
| command. | commanding officer. | officers. | men. | aggregate. | total. |
| Fourteenth Army Corps. | Colonel J. G. Mitchell, commanding. | ||||
| First Battalion | Lieutenant-Colonel F. W. Lister | 8 | 526 | 534 | |
| Second Battalion | Lieutenant-Colonel William O'Brien | 4 | 256 | 260 | 794 |
| Twentieth Army Corps. | Colonel Benjamin Harrison, commanding. | ||||
| First Battalion | Lieutenant-Colonel McManis | 8 | 399 | 407 | |
| Second Battalion | Major Haskins | 6 | 304 | 310 | 717 |
| Lieutenant-Colonel Banning, commanding. | |||||
| Eighteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry | Captain Henderson | 9 | 316 | 325 | |
| Third Battery, Fourteenth A. C. | Major Roatch | 8 | 311 | 319 | 644 |
| Seventeenth Army Corps. | Colonel A. G. Malloy, commanding. | ||||
| Field and Staff | 3 | 3 | |||
| Twentieth Illinois Battery | Captain C. C. Cox | 1 | 126 | 127 | |
| Thirtieth Illinois Battery | Captain J. Kemmitzer | 1 | 208 | 209 | |
| Thirteenth Iowa Infantry | Captain C. Haskins | 1 | 186 | 187 | |
| Third Battery, Twentieth A. C. | Captain Hurlbut | 6 | 290 | 296 | 822 |
| Total | 55 | 2922 | 2977 | 2977 | |
