the artillery to assist in getting it up the hills. After this we got along with less difficulty, and passing through Mount Pleasant on 26th, on 27th just beyond Pillow's place we turned off to the right and moved toward Pulaski pike to a point near Porter's house, when my command was halted, and the enemy being in line around Columbia, skirmishers were thrown forward. The enemy withdrew the night of 27th to the north side of Duck River, and at daylight the skirmish line was advanced into town.

On the morning of 29th, at an early hour, my command, following Loring's, crossed Duck River several miles above the town, and, without artillery or any wagons, except a few to carry a msall supply of extra ammunition, by a forced march and circuitous route, reached a point after night to the right of and near the Franklin pike about a mile above Spring Hill. Here we were halted, and after remaining in the roazd till 10 or 11 o'clock were ordered to bivouac near where we then were.

The next morning we [were] ordered to move at daylight, and I followed the advance division to the pike, reaching which we moved rapidly toward Franklin, and when in sight of the range of hils south of the town we discovered they were occupied by the enemy. We thereupon left the pike; moved to the right through woods and fields until within about a mile and a quarter of the town. Here a line was formed to attack the enemy, who, by our last movement, had been compelled to withdraw to his works around the town. My command, now numbering but 1,400 guns, was the center of the corps, and presented two brigades front (Quarles' on the right and Reynolds' on the left), with Cantey's, under command of Brigadier General C. M. Shelley, in reserve. The advance was ordered about 4 o'clock, and my instructions were in making it to conform to the movements of the division on my right. There was an impenetrable brier thicket of considerable extent immediately in front of my left brigade, and Brigadier-General Reynolds was directed, when the line was put in motion, to make his way around it, and when he had gotten upon ground that would enable him to do so, to move up at double quick and resume his place in the line. After moving a short distance the line of the corps, which had become somewhat disordered by reason of the broken ground and undergrowth, when they had passed, was halted and reformed. Here Brigadier-General Shelley, whose brigade had followed Quarles', was directed to move up and take the position assigned to Brigadier-General Reynolds, who, without fault of himself or his command, had to been able to regain his place in the line by reason of the natural obstacles in the way of his march. Brigadier-General Shelley came promptly upon the line, and in a few moments afterward, when the entire line was rectified, the advance was resumed. Both officers and men seemed fully alive to the importance of beating the enemy here at any cost, and the line moved steadily forward until it neared his outer works, and then fell upon it so impetuously that the opposing force gave way without even retarding the advance and retired in disorder to the strong entrenchments in rear. There was an extensive, open, and almost unbroken plain between the outer and inner lines, across which we must pass to reach the latter. This was done under far the most deadly fire of both small-arms and artillery that I have ever seen troops subjected to. Terribly torn at every step by an oblique fire from a battery advantageously posted at the enemy's left, no less than by the destructive fire in front, the line moved on and did not falter till, just to the right of the pike, it reached the abatis fronting the works. Over this no organized force could go, and here the main body