HURLBUT’S DIVISION.
Hurlbut’s division stretched across the Corinth road, facing to the left. W. H. L. Wallace’s other brigades had gone over to assist McArthur, and the divisions thus reunited, steadily closed the line. To Hurlbut’s right the lines were united by the reorganized regiments that had been resent to the field. McClernand and Sherman were both there.
Hurlbut had been encamped in the edge of a stretch of open fields, backed with heavy timber, which lay nearest the river.
Three times during those long hours the heavy rebel passes on the left charged upon the division, and three times were they repulsed with terrible slaughter. Close, sharp, continuous musketry filled the air with fire and smoke—whole lines belched their furious fire on the rebels, and a leaden storm swept the fields over which they attempted to advance with terrible fury. No troops could have withstood this deadly fire. Rebel discipline gave way under it, though dead bodies left scattered over the field, even on Monday evening, bore ghastly testimony to the daring with which they had been precipitated towards the Federal lines.
The rebel generals handled their forces with a skill that extorted admiration even from their enemies. Repulse was nothing to them; if a rush on the Union lines failed, they took their disordered troops to the rear, and sent up fresh forces, who ignorant of the deadly reception that awaited them, were ready to make a new trial. Hurlbut’s jaded division was compelled to yield at last, and after six hours’ magnificent fighting, it fell back of its camps to a point within half a mile of the landing.