LEW. WALLACE’S MOVEMENTS.
When Major-General Lew. Wallace opened the battle at seven o’clock by shelling with enfilading fires a rebel battery, a few shots demonstrated to the rebels that their position was untenable. The instant Sherman came in to protect his left, Wallace advanced his infantry. The rebel battery at once limbered up and got out of the way. The advance had withdrawn the division from Sherman, making a left half wheel, to get back into the neighborhood of the Federal line; they advanced some two hundred yards, which brought them to a little elevation, with a broad open stretch to the front. As the division halted on the crest of the swell, through the edge of the timber, skirting the fields, the head of a rebel column appeared, marching past in splendid style on the double-quick. Banner after banner flashed out through the foliage; the “Stars and Bars” forming a long line, stretching parallel with Wallace’s line of battle. Regiment after regiment swept forward, the line lengthened, and doubled and trebled; the head of the column was out of sight and still they came. Twenty regiments were counted passing through the woods. Their design was plain. The rebels had abandoned the idea of forcing their way through the Union left, and the manifest attempt was to turn the right.
Thompson’s and Thurber’s batteries were now ordered up, and the whole column was shelled as it passed. The rebels threw their artillery into position rapidly, and a brisk cannonading began. After a time, while the fight still rested with the artillery, the rebels opened a new and destructive battery to the right, which the Union men soon ascertained was “Watson’s Louisiana battery,” from the marks on the ammunition boxes the enemy were forced from time to time to leave behind.
Batteries, with a brigade of supporting infantry, were now moved forward over open fields, under heavy fire, to contend against this new assailant. The batteries opened, the sharpshooters were thrown out to the front to pick off the rebel artillerists, and the brigade was ordered down on its face to protect it from the flying shell and grape. For an hour and a half the contest lasted, while the body of the division was still delayed, waiting for Sherman.