therefore resumed command of my company, devoting all my attention to it thereafter. At the same time I received your order to remove my battery farther to the right, and placed it upon two eminences between the roads crossing the ridge immediately to the right of General Bragg's headquarters. The eminence farther to the right was occupied by Lieutenant Chalaron with two Napoleons and one rifled gun, and the other by Lieutenant Vaught with the same distribution of pieces.

At Lieutenant Chalaron's position a rude parapet for artillery had been thrown up, but it was found to be an obstacle to the proper handling of the guns, and soon after the engagement opened they were taken outside of it and nearer to the crest of the ridge. No infantry support was stationed upon this eminence at any time during the fight. Barely had my battery got into position when the cheers and advancing lines of the enemy disclosed their purpose of storming the ridge under cover of the fire of their batteries, which at the same moment had sprung into full play from various and unexpected points in the valley. At the sound of these cheers the pickets in front of my right half-battery retreated up the hill and disappeared in my rearted up the hill and siappeared in my rear. This unusual timidity in our infantry, and the nature of the slope in my front, which made it apparent that as soon as the foot of the ridge was obtained the enemy would be protected from my fire, induced me to open rapidly upon them as soon as their lines emerged from the woods. I had also hopes thereby to reassure our troops and intimidate if not check the foe. STeadily, however, they advanced, my fire compelling them only to abandon my immediate front and bear of from it to the right and left. This movement exposed their flank to a raking fire from my right half-battery, from which they sought shelter behind a swell in the slope of a hill farther to the right. Under this protection they gained the crest of the ridge, some 200 yards to my right, the infantry at that point abandoning their works without a struggle, leaving in the hands of the enemy two or more pieces of artillery which were afterward turned upon my battery. At this stage of the engagement, considering the defection of the infantry around me, the exhausted state of my limber chests and the difficulty of removing artillery from the ridge, I might have been warranted in withrawing my battery. But judging the battle as only begun, and firm in my reliance upon our infantry rallying and retaking the position on my right, I ordered my right half-battery to be turned upon the enemy on the ridge, and I sent for a fresh supply of ammunition. In the meantime myself and officers exerted ourselves in arresting the flight of the infantry, but with little success. Of the ammunition ordered up, but one limber chest reached me, and that only running the gauntlet of the enemy's fire, as the only practicable road from my caissons lay between my guns and the position just stormed. Other attempts were made, but the road was soon occupied by the enemy and several of my limbers compelled to retrace their steps.

My fire had been speedily opened and its effects was marked, when a shell from one of the batteries in the valley exploded both the limber chests of the Napoleon guns of my right half-battery, shattering the chests and carriages, killing and disabling most of the horses, and so entangling the remained as to require cutting them out of the harness to save them. This calamity added to the confusion and panic of the infantry. The supports of my left half-battery, caught the contagion and the enemy soon gained the summit of the ridge on my left. I now ordered to the rear the four pieces that could be limbered up. The

7 R R-VOL LII, PT I