The attack on Helena will be made tomorrow morning at daylight, and as follows: 1. Major-General Price, in command of McRae's and Parsons' brigades, will proceed by the best route, assume position, assault and take Graveyard hill [Battery C] at daylight. 2. Brigadier-General Walker, with his cavalry brigade, will in like manner proceed to the Sterling road [north of the town, at Battery A], where he will hold himself in position to resist any troops that may approach Rightor hill; and when these positions are captured, he will enter the town and act against the enemy as circumstances may justify. 3. Brigadier-General Fagan will proceed by the best route, assume position, and take the battery on Hindman hill [Battery D] at daylight. 4. Brigadier-General Marmaduke will proceed with his command by the best route, assume position, and take Rightor hill [Battery A] at daylight.About midnight the troops began to move to their respective positions. Soon after daylight, General Marmaduke drove in the enemy's pickets and commenced the assault at Rightor hill, but a cavalry force, under Cols. Powell Clayton and T. H. Benton, appearing on his flank and rear, he had to fall back. This force had
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enemy had constructed their Battery C, protected by rifle-pits and abattis in front.
To the south of Battery C was Hindman hill, Battery D, commanding the road to Little Rock, called the ‘upper Little Rock road’ to distinguish it from a road from Little Rock leading in from the south on the river levels.
On a headland north of the city, Rightor hill, on Sterling road, was Battery A, which also commanded the old St. Francis road, running northwest; and upon the upper St. Francis road, a little farther south, on a commanding headland, was Battery B.
Batteries C and D, a quarter and a half mile south, under the guns of Fort Curtis, were the keys to the capture of Helena from the west.
It was July 3, 1863, when the disposition for the attack was made under the following order:
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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