[CHAP. XVII.

part with light artillery in the face of protected batteries and swarming sharpshooters, who fired from the cover of breastworks and intervening trees and brush-wood. Although signally successful on our part in silencing the enemy's guns wherever and as often as they opened fire, and in killing and wounding by his own admission many of his officers and men, yet, on the other hand, it cost us a number of valuable lives, among whom was Lieutenant Joseph Hauger, who received a mortal wound while gallantly assisting in playing Schwartz's battery, only some 200 yards from the enemy's entrenchments.

During the afternoon of the 13th the weather turned intensely cold, a driving north wind bringing a storm of snow and sleet upon the unprotected men of my division. The night set in gloomily, and the mingle drain and snow congealed as they fell, thus painfully adding to the discomfort of a restitution of tents and camp equipage, all of which had been left behind. The scanty rations which the men could carry on leaving Fort henry were reduced to a small allowance of hard bread and coffee, which were generously shared with comrades whose supply had become exhausted. Being in point-blank rang of the enemy's batteries and sharpshooters, camp fires, inviting shot and shell, were not lighted. The pickets of the enemy and those of my own division, drawing near together, disputed the narrow space between the two armies, which rested uneasily upon their arms, chilled and shivering under the infliction of hostile elements. Yet through the weary hours of the long night the brave men of my command bore themselves without complaint and even with enthusiasm. During the same night, incited by despair, the enemy threw up new entrenchments, planted new batteries, comprising all the field pieces which had been in the fort, and in every practicable way strengthened his defenses along my right.

The morning of Friday, the 14th, dawned cold and cheerless upon men already severely tried by hunger, exposure, and long-continued watching and labor, yet rising promptly to the duties of the day. Anticipating the desire of the enemy to preserve an avenue of escape along the river above Dover, I dispatched Captain Stewart and Lieutenant Freeman, of my staff, accompanied by a small detachment of infantry, for a more thorough examination of the ground in that direction. The result of this reconnaissance, together with others made by Colonels Noble's Dickey's cavalry and myself, convinced me that without the re-enforcements I had requested it would be safer and quite as effectual, for the purpose of preventing the escape of the enemy, to rest my right on a creek made impassable by the backwater of the Cumberland as to farther extend my already attenuated line in the face of newly erected batteries and an accumulated mass of the enemy's infantry to that river, and accordingly I ordered a disposition with a view to that object.

Colonel John McArthur's brigade, consisting of the Ninth, Twelfth, and Forty-first Regiments Illinois Volunteers, coming up a little while before dark, was moved forward in compliance with my order near to the right of my line, and disposed in the order mentioned, in part as a reserve supporting the Eighteenth, and the remaining part so as to extend my line to a point within 400 or 500 yards of the creek. Colonels Noble's and Dickey's cavalry, being my only remaining available force, were disposed to the rear and still farther to the right, so as to command this space. After the Third Brigade had taken the position assigned to it a 10-pounder Parrott gun, of Major Cavender's Missouri Battalion, was brought to the ground, followed by another of the same caliber from the same battalion in the morning. Having been informed by you as