right during the fierce fight which ended in the capture of Prentiss, to sweep everything forward. This division was moved promptly forward, although some regiments had not succeeded in getting a supply of ammunition, and had just entered a deep and precipitous ravine when the enemy opened a terrific fire upon it. Staff officers were immediately dispatched to bring up all the re-enforcements to be found and the order was given to brigade commanders to charge the batteries. These orders were being obeyed, when, to my astonishment, a large portion of the command was observed to move rapidly by the left flank from under the fire of the enemy. Orders were immediately sent to arrest the commanding officers and for the troops to be promptly placed in position for charging the batteries. Information was soon brought, however, that it was by General Beauregard's orders, delivered thus directly to brigade commanders, that the troops were being rapidly led from under the fire of the enemy's gunboats. Thus ended the fight on Sunday, and thus was this command disorganized, an evil sorely felt during the next day.

Receiving at this time an order from General Bragg to take command of all the troops on the right, and it being now near dark, the order was given to fall back about half a mile and bivouac for the night, Chalmers' brigade resting in rear nearest the enemy, and the remainder of the troops at the second of the camps from the one last captured, under command of Colonel Wheeler, Nineteenth Alabama. Here we met General Hardee, with Colonel Martin's [Second Confederate] regiment.

At 4 o'clock Monday morning the troops were put in motion to form line of battle on the road leading from this camp diagonally to the left and rear to a road branching off to the right from the Bark and Pittsburgh road and nearly a mile distant from the camp. Chalmers' brigade was to form the rear guard until this otherwise fragmentary command could be worked into some shape, the order being given to force all stragglers into ranks.

The head of this line had but just reached the point at which it was to halt when an order was received from General Bragg to move my command to the assistance of General Anderson, who was hotly pressed by the enemy. With receipt of this order came a message from General Chalmers that he had already had one fierce engagement with the enemy and was then in the second. Every available mane was immediately marched back and line of battle formed near the position occupied by us through the night, Chalmers' brigade being on the right, the Nineteenth and Twenty-first Alabama and the Second Texas on the left, Colonel Moore, of the Second Texas, being in command of the left. Roberston's battery was placed in position at the edge of an old field, with instructions to sweep the enemy from our front, and also to aid some command on the left [believed to be Anderson's], which seemed to be warmly engaged. The reserve consisted of the Crescent [Louisiana], Colonel Martin's [Confederate] regiment, and Maney's First Tenisiana], Colonel Martin's [Confederate] regiment, and Maney's First Tennessee, with whatever other troops from time to time could be picked up. At this time an order was received from General Beauregard to charge the enemy in conjunction with General Breckinridge. The charge was made by us, but General Breckinridge was neither then nor subsequently in that portion of the field. The enemy proved to be in such numbers that it became necessary to bring our entire force into action, and the fight continued with sullen desperation for several hours and with alternate success. Between 2.30 and 3 o'clock, finding that the enemy were content to hold their position and not advance on us, our line of the morning was resumed, the left under command of the gallant Colonel Maney, of the First Tennessee Regiment.