[CHAP. XLIII.

Badger, of the Fourth Florida. By repeated application from the front, representing the picket force there without support on the left, and remembering the misfortunes of the 23rd in the picket line to our right, I was induced, upon consultation with the corps commander, to send the Seventh Florida Regiment as a reserve to out picket line. This little force, under the frown of such a horrid front, remained defiant, and, in obedience to orders, maneuvered handsomely amid the peril of capture until, by order, it found a lodgment in the trenches at the foot of Missionary Ridge, with its right resting at Moore's house, on the left of the Sixtieth North Carolina Regiment (of Brigadier-General Reynolds' command), and its left adjoining the command of Brigadier-General Strahl at a new redoubt where the main line of defense diverges in the direction of Lookout Mountain. Knowing the disadvantage under which the line, strung out without reserves on the summit of the ridge, would labor in resisting with a plunging fire (no other could be given) the advance of three strong lines, I ordered that it hold the trenches at all hazards. To give them up was to give the enemy a shelter behind the, if he chose to stop there, or to pursue rapidly up the hill, under cover of our retiring line, and gain a lodgment with but little resistance. I give the above interjectional sentence because the obedience of this order may have resulted in the capture of brave and obedient soldiers.

About 1 p.m. I was ordered by my corps commander to remove the division by the right flank until its right should rest on the left of Brigadier General Patton Anderson's line. In the execution of the order I found Adams' brigade, of Stewart's division (Colonel Gibson commanding), extended on the left of General Anderson's line with a brigade space between. I communicated this fact through Captain McCawley, of my staff, to General Breckinridge, and desired to know if in the adjustment of my line this brigade was to be regarded as a part of Anderson's line. I was answered in the affirmative, and so made my dispositions. In a few moments, however, I received a message from General Breckinridge directing me to report in person to him at General Bragg's quarters, which I did. General Breckinridge was in the act of going toward Rossville, and directed me to General Bragg, who gave instructions to let my left rest on the Crutchfield road where it crossed the hill, as General Anderson wanted space on his left for Reynolds' brigade in case it was retired from the trenches, a fact which General Anderson had made known to me through Captain McCawley, of my staff, and Captain Parker, of General Bragg's staff. My right had under the previous order arrived nearly to the left of General Anderson's brigade, commanded by Colonel Tucker, when the countermanding order cause a left-flank movement until the left of Finley's brigade rested on the Crutchfield road. Cobb's (Kentucky) battery had been detached in the forenoon by General Breckinridge, and by his order detained on the left of General Bragg's quarters in the line subsequently occupied by Adams' brigade, of Stewart's division; Slocomb's was on an eminence near my right, and Mebane's near the center of my line. The temporary earth-works thrown up at these points was a hinderance to the successful use of the pieces, they being too close to the crest of the hill to admit of being placed in front of them, and being necessarily in rear could not be sufficiently depressed to command the slope of the hill in front. The eminence on which Slocomb's battery was placed projected beyond the general western slope of the ridge,