small force, he was to pick it up. If the enemy proved too strong for him, he was to retire across the creek under cover of the line held by General Benning. I was instructed to communicate with General Benning and to control the road, so as to prevent re-enforcement from moving up it toward the railroad, and in case Colonel Bratton's command had to retire to hold my position until he could withdraw his troops.

Sending a courier to remain with Bratton's command until it commenced moving, when he was to notify me, I returned to my own command. In a short time I received information that Bratton was in motion. My line was at once ordered forward and took position on the wooded slope overlooking the road, the left 30 or 40 and the right 150 or 200 yards from it. Here I remained nearly an hour. This time was employed in strengthening the position by the construction of rail and log breastworks before the firing began on the left.

In the meantime, General Benning had come up on my left in rear of Colonel Bratton, while the latter had moved on against the camp of the enemy. Soon after the fighting on the left began I was notified by Colonel Sheffield, of the Forty-eighth Alabama Regiment, commanding my brigade on the occasion, that a column of troops was moving from the camp on my right along the road in front. I directed the skirmishers to retire to the line of battle, and allowed the head of the column to get opposite to my left before firing. One volley scattered it in the fields beyond the road, where it attempted to reform and move on, but a second fire again dispersed it. While this was taking place other troops were coming up from the right, and, our position having now been disclosed, they turned to attack it.

Their line of attack was formed obliquely to our own, their left coming in contact with our line first and striking it near the right. This caused their left to be forced in upon our position by the other parts of their line as it advanced. The first attack was easily repulsed. The second was made in heavier force with a like result at all points of the line except one. This was at the junction of the Forty-fourth and Fifteenth Alabama Regiments. Here the enemy, forced in by the right of their line upon a vacant space in our own, caused by detaching a company for service as vedettes between my right and the river, broke through the line. Parts of both regiments gave way. By the exertions of Colonel Sheffield, and with the assistance of the Fourth Alabama, which had cleared its front of the enemy, the line was re-established and the enemy driven from it. Before this second attack took place the firing on the railroad had ceased, and a message was brought me by Captain Jamison, of General Jenkins' staff, to the effect that Colonel Bratton had encountered a heavy force of the enemy [a corps, I think, he said]; that General Jenkins was withdrawing, and that he wished me to withold my position until he could retire.

A few moments before this message came I had dispatched a courier to General Jenkins to report to him that the enemy was attacking me in front; that it was possible for him to pass troops in rear of those engaged in this attack to the point at which I supposed Colonel Bratton to be, and that if this should be done Bratton might be placed in a dangerous position. Very soon another messenger brought substantially the same message delivered by Captain Jamison, and informed me further that Colonel Bratton's command was at the creek, and either crossing or about to cross [I cannot now re-