878 Series I Volume XX-I Serial 29 - Murfreesborough Part I
Page 878 | KY.,MID.AND E.TENN.,N.ALA., AND SW.VA. Chapter XXXII. |
he trusts and believes they would scorn to appropriate aught that was not their due.*
Of Lieutenant-Colonel [W. W.] Floyd it is just to say that on this field of battle he has shown himself to be a good, faithful, energetic, and gallant officer. His cool judgment and courage, and the steadiness with which he stood to his post in every position of his command, have not, perhaps, been excelled by any officer on the field at Murfreesborough.
In the woods behind the hospital I reformed the brigade in line of battle, and obtained a new supply of cartridges, the Seventeenth having supplied itself mainly from the wagons it captured. Captain Darden's battery also came up here and took position on the left of the brigade.
About this time, finding Brigadier-General Wood falling back from an advanced position on our right, I learned from him upon inquiry that the enemy had a heavy battery in his front, which was doing much damage. Under instructions from Major-General Cleburne, I sent forward a company of sharpshooters, under command of Captain [F. B.] Terry, of the Seventeenth, with instructions to take off the men and horses of the battery. At the same time Captain Darden's battery, by direction of Major Hotchkiss, moved to the right of my brigade and into the woods in advance of Brigadier-General Wood's brigade, and opened fire on the advancing enemy, driving them back. Captain Darden reports that he then moved his battery to the right into a field, in which there was a hospital, about 300 yards from the Wilkinson pike, and, in conjunction with two guns of, he thinks, Captain [J. T.] Humphrey's battery, engaged a battery of the enemy, and, after a hotly contested fight, silenced four of his guns.
In the mean time Captain Terry advanced, with his company deployed as skirmishers, and, passing to the left of the Wilkinson pike, approached the garden fence of the hospital to our right and front on the north side of the Wilkinson pike, driving from that fence the enemy's skirmishers, who took position in the edge of a cedar thicket, to which a heavy force of the enemy's infantry now advanced, when Captain Terry withdrew his men and joined his regiment, now in motion.
In the mean time I was ordered by Major-General Cleburne to move my brigade by the left flank across a corn-field on the north side of the Wilkinson pike. On passing all but the right regiment of my brigade into the woods beyond the corn-field, I was directed to move to the front in support of Brigadier-General Polk's brigade. We descended the slope of a hill and entered the cedars, on a rocky acclivity some 200 yards to the left of the position to which Captain Terry had driven the enemy's skirmishers. My men here opened fire, when I directed them to desist, believing that our friends were in front of our line. Riding now in advance of the right of our line, the enemy's fire was unexpectedly drawn. After a few rounds it was found that a heavy force was flanking our right, where we were unsupported. I consequently moved my command to the rear in good here. Major McReynolds, the last field officer on duty with the Thirty-seventh, was here mortally wounded, and Captain Jarnagin assumed command of the regiment. In our rear there was drawn
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*NOTE ON ORIGINAL.-In regard to the Federal hospital in controversy, it is hoped it may be found that while this brigade captured the one known as the Jenkins house, the other brigade captured that known as the Widow Smith's house.
The following officers are known to be prisoners in Nashville: MajorJ. C. Davis, Captain [William] Clarke, Captain [G. W.] O'Neal, Second Lieutenant [M. W.] Black, First Lieutenant [H. M.] Kinsey, Lieutenant [M. P.] Marbury [not known], Seventeenth Regiment Tennessee Volunteers.
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Page 878 | KY.,MID.AND E.TENN.,N.ALA., AND SW.VA. Chapter XXXII. |