ing, and to keep the enemy in view and skirmishers well out to the front. The Seventeenth Tennessee Regiment now ascended the hill, and was formed behind the fence on the crest of the eminence, where it commanded a full view of the enemy's lines. The first line was within about 600 yards of the Seventeenth, and the troops before noticed advancing from the woods on the enemy's left and rear seemed to form a third line. Their number was perhaps 8,000 or 10,000 men. The lines in front of the Seventeenth raised a shout, and started forward at double-quick time but at the second or third round of the Seventeenth, with perhaps as many rounds from the section of artillery, the front was decidedly checked and thrown into confusion. The section of the Eufaula Battery was now withdrawn without any order from or through me, but I have since understood that it was withdrawn by an officer of General Stewart's staff. After holding this eminence some fifteen or twenty minutes, during which the enemy was moving still to their right and around the base of the eminence, evidently with a view to outflank us, the Seventeenth fell back some 200 yards, during a very heavy shower of rain, which concealed the movement of the enemy from view. A Federal battery to move his regiment by the left flank in the manner before indicated for the Twenty-fifth, and to connect with the latter regiment.

In the mean time the Twenty-third Tennessee Regiment maintained the position to which I had ordered it until there was some 800 yards between it and the Seventeenth, and I sent instructions to unite with that regiment, which it now did, and moved to the left with it. The Forty-fourth continued to hold its first position, and skirmish with the enemy in its front until the column of the enemy, advancing in the hollow in its rear, had gained the rear of its left flank, when it moved by the right flank, passed under the hill along the Garrison Fork, and formed on the right of the Twenty-third near the eminence to which the Twenty-fifth was first ordered when our movement commenced, and which had just been abandoned by the Seventeenth. These movements were all conducted in an admirable manner, and as object was evidently not to engage in a general battle, the movement of each regiment was well timed.

About the time that the Seventeenth, Twenty-third, and Forty-fourth were being put in motion by the left flank to move after the Twenty-fifth along the skirt of woods before indicated, Major [J. W.] Eldridge, of the artillery, reported to me with one Napoleon gun and a section of two light field pieces of [Frank] Maney's battery, which I requested him to place in position near Brigadier-General Bate's old headquarters (the Amick house).

About the same time I was informed, in answer to my inquiry of on of Major-General Stewart's staff (Major Eldridge, I think), that the other troops of the division had passed the Fairfield road immediately in my rear. When the middle of my brigade had reached the point indicated, I found the three guns duly posted under Captain Darden. Major Eldridge here informed me that he would post the other three guns of Darden's battery on an eminence near the Fairfield road, on the south side of the Martin farm, and stated when Captain Darden fell back he would go to that position. Some 4 or 5 rounds were fired by our artillery, when the enemy's batteries, which had continually annoyed my infantry with shells during their flank movement, directed their fire on the position occupied by the guns under Captain Darden. The skirmishers of my leading or left regiment (the Twenty-fifth) also became