the boyaux running out perpendicular to the rear of our trenches, and behind the piles of earth above their bomb-proofs, opened a fatal fire on every point where the foe exposed themselves. Thus their advance was stayed, and they commenced the work of intrenching, while they still tried by more cautious means to press back our faithful and gallant men.

Brigadier General S. Elliott, the gallant commander of the brigade which occupied the salient, was making prompt disposition of his forces to assault the enemy and reoccupy the remaining portion of the trench cavalier when he was dangerously wounded. He had given the necessary orders for the Twenty-sixth and the left wing of the Seventeenth South Carolina Regiments to be withdrawn from the trenches, and had preceded them to the open ground to the left and in rear of the cavalier when he was struck by a rifle-ball. The command of this brigade now devolved upon Colonel F. W. McMaster, of the Seventeenth South Carolina Regiment. This officer (having received the re-enforcement of one regiment, sent to him by Colonel McAfee, commanding Ransom's brigade) directed Colonel Smith, of the Twenty-sixth South Carolina Regiment, to form in a ravine on the left and rear of the breach a rear line consisting of the Twenty-fifth North Carolina, Twenty-sixth South Carolina, and three companies of the Seventeenth South Carolina Regiments, arranged from left to right in the order named.

Some fourteen Federal flags were now counted on our works, and it became evident that it would be better to endeavor to hold the enemy in check until larger re-enforcements arrived than risk the disaster that might follow from an unsuccessful assault by a very inferior force without any support.

The new line to the left and rear of the salient was scarcely formed when the enemy attempted, with a force thrown out to the rear of our works, with those in our trenches, and with a line in front of our trenches, to charge to our left along our breast-works and in rear and front. The Twenty-fourth and Forty-ninth North Carolina Regiments, Ransom's brigade, had promptly closed in on the part of the Seventeenth South Carolina Regiment remaining in the trenches when the intermediate regiments were drawn out to form the rear line, and now met and repulsed the charge in front, while the line under Colonel Smith, of the Twenty-sixth South Carolina Regiment, was equally successful in rear. Two companies of the Forty-ninth North Carolina Regiment, posted in the covered way near the main line, poured a heavy volley on the flank of the enemy in rear, and our men of the Seventeenth South Carolina and Forty-ninth North Carolina Regiments, under cover of angles, boyaux, &c., drove back the charge along the trenches. After this the enemy continued to fight along the parapet, keeping under cover; but, though our forces on the left failed in several attempts to throw up barricades in the trenches, the former made but slow progress in this movement.

In the meantime the Twenty-third South Carolina Regiment, under Captain White, and a few remaining men of the Twenty-second South Carolina Regiment, under Captain Shedd, aided by the Twenty-sixth and part of the Forty-sixth Virginia Regiments, gallantly defended the trenches on the right of the breach.

The South Carolina troops on that side succeeded in placing a barricade in the trenches on the side of the hill, and planting themselves behind it and in the boyaux running to the rear, maintained their position within thirty yards of the crater for about fiver hours, during which the enemy never drove them a foot to the right, though they made sev-