[CHAP. XXVIII.

corn field, through which we had to advance. This battery and its support was making terrible havoc with the right wing of the brigade, so reported by the field officers of the Forty-first Georgia to me, whereupon I sent Captain Malone to General Maney asking for my regiment to be sent to the right, which request was granted. After deploying the regiment to the extreme right it was ordered to charge, which it did not splendid style, with close, compact ranks, killing all the horses and men of the battery and driving its support away. In this charge the brigade became very much disorganized, and after taking the battery by some mistake fell back in confusion. My regiment lost in that charge its gallant lieutenant-colonel (John Petterson) and some 40 or 50 men and officers. I rallied the regiment at the foot of the hill, no other regiment forming but mine, some 30 or 40 men of the other regiments falling into the ranks. In the mean time the enemy came back to the guns behind the battery, and also marched two regiments on our left on a wooded hill which lay at right angles with the hill that we charged up. I led the regiment up the hill alone, without any support, under a heavy fire of musketry, driving the enemy back and taking his guns again. The regiments on our left then opened their fire upon us, killing and wounding a dozen officers and men at each discharge. Just then I discovered Hardee's battle-flag coming up on our left about 500 yards in rear. Expecting that the regiment that carried the flag would engage the enemy that were cross-firing upon us I determined to hold the hill at every cost, thinking they would drive the enemy before them; they failed to do so and fell back before they had arrived in 200 yards of my position; whereupon I ordered my regiment to retire, which it did in much better order than could have been expected, leaving half their number dead and wounded on the top of the hill.

My whole loss amounts to 181 killed, wounded, and missing.

Respectfully submitted.

H. R. FEILD,

Colonel, Commanding First Tennessee Regiment.

Captain THOMAS H. MALONE, Assistant Adjutant-General.

Numbers 34.

Report of Colonel George C. Porter, Sixth Tennessee Infantry.

OCTOBER 16, 1862.

SIR: Accordingly to instructions I beg leave to submit this my report of the Sixth Regiment Tennessee Volunteers in the action of the 8th ultimo at Perryville, Ky.:

About 1 p.m. the brigade, under the command of Brigadier General George Maney, was in line of battle immediately in rear of General Stewart's brigade. The position of this regiment was second from the right, between the Forty-first Georgia and Ninth Tennessee Regiments. Having proceeded in this manner for about half a mile the right of the brigade rested upon the bank of a creek, the opposite of which was rocky and precipitous. It was ordered by the flank farther to the right across said creek, under the cover of a bluff about 200 yards in front. Having moved in this new direction several hundred yards around this impassable ascent sufficiently far for three regiments (the Forty-first Georgia, Sixth Tennessee, and Ninth Tennessee) to be fronted and to move in its old direction a forward movement was again ordered. The nature of the ground was