of the old gin-house and the hospital, and this regiment continued to return a brisk fire until a white flag was violently waved by a Yankee advancing from the hospital. The firing pretty well ceased in the regiment after this white flag was exhibited, and two companies [Captains [T. H.] Watterson's and [G. W.] McDonald's] passed through the yard of the hospital and on both sides of it, and Captain [U. C.] Harrison's company passed entirely on the left of the yard. When the regiment reached the hospital, a brisk fire was again opened upon some Yankees who were running toward the Wilkinson pike, but particularly on some Yankees who were trying to get off some ammunition wagons which the Seventeenth Regiment captured, and from which the men of that regiment file their boxes. Captains Watterson's and McDonald's companies fired from the yard fence in rear of the hospital upon the Yankees retreating toward the pike. After we had entered the woods beyond the hospital, we halted and the regiment was reformed. After we had been reformed about twenty minutes, a Federal officer came galloping up from our left, apparently thinking we were Yankees, and we captured him and his horse. The capture was made by Lieutenant [M. W.] Black, of Company E, Seventeenth Tennessee Regiment. The enemy were now in full view near the Wilkinson pike.

Now, it is proposed to deny, in the face of the men and officers of the Seventeenth [Regiment] who were engaged, that any such a conflict as described occurred at the point indicated. It is claimed that the Second Arkansas Regiment was the first to reach this hospital, and that there was no fighting about the hospital afterward. Private Elder, of the Second Liddell, states that, with Private Faidley, he took possession of the hospital, which he understood was the residence of a Mr. Griscom, and that he did not see General Johnson's brigade until some time after he had been stationed there, when General Liddell's brigade had passed to the front, and that there was no fighting at or about the hospital at that time. Private Faidley, of Company D, Second Arkansas Regiment, says he saw the Seventeenth Tennessee Regiment, General Johnson's brigade, come up within 75 yards of the hospital about fifteen minutes after General Liddell's brigade passed. Thus it is proved that the Seventeenth Regiment had no conflict at the hospital, and that it reached the hospital after General Liddell's brigade had passed. This, I must be permitted to say, proves too much. No combinations of proof can demonstrate to the officers and men of the Seventeenth Regiment that they did not have a fight in and about the yard of the hospital.

The simple explanation of all this, and the fact the Second Arkansas Regiment had men wounded and killed near the hospital, is to me plainly as follows: The Seventeenth Regiment, after passing the hospital, entered the woods beyond, obliquing considerably to the right, and the regiment was here reformed, with the left resting about 75 or 100 yards to the right of and beyond the hospital. In this position, and after the regiment had passed the hospital, the half of the right company of the Second Arkansas Regiment might, perhaps, have passed to the right of the hospital without touching or seeing the Seventeenth Tennessee Regiment. The enemy were still in the woods, and might have wounded and killed men of the Second Arkansas Regiment by firing from the left, and, perhaps, the front of the hospital. By no other method can it be explained how Privates Elder and Faidley failed to witness the conflict which the Seventeenth Regiment had at the hospital. The regiment, or, perhaps, some other regiment of our brigade, which came up over half an hour after the Seventeenth Regiment passed the