“Third brigade, by the right flank, double-quick, Forward, March!” Colonel Thayer commanding the brigade repeats the order. The men break into a run towards the front along the road. General Wallace gallops in advance, and meets Colonel Wallace conducting his brigade to the rear.
“We are out of ammunition. The enemy are following. If you will put your troops into line till we can fill our cartridge-boxes, we will stop them.” He says it so coolly and deliberately that it astonishes General Wallace. It reassures him. He feels that it is a critical moment, but with men retiring so deliberately, there is no reason to be discouraged.
He leads Thayer’s brigade up to the crest of the hill, just where the road begins to descend into the ravine, through which gurgles the clear running brook.
“Bring up Company A, Chicago Light Artillery!” he shouts to an aid. A few moments, and Captain Wood, who commands the battery, leads it along the road. The horses are upon the gallop. The teamsters lash them with their whips. They leap over logs, stones, stumps, and through the bushes. They halt at the crest of the hill.
“Put your guns here, two pieces in the road, and two on each side, and load with grape and canister.”
The men spring to their pieces. They throw off their coats, and work in their shirt-sleeves. They ram home the cartridges and stand beside their pieces, waiting for the enemy.
The battery faces southeast. On the right of the battery, next to it, is the First Nebraska, and beyond it the Fifty-eighth Illinois. On the left of the battery is Captain Davison’s company of the Thirty-second Illinois, and beyond it the Fifty-eighth Ohio. A few rods in rear is the Seventy-sixth Ohio and the Forty-sixth and Fifty-seventh Illinois.
McArthur, Oglesby, Wallace, and Cruft have all fallen back, and their regiments are reforming in the woods west of Thayer’s position, and filling their cartridge-boxes.
The Rebels halt a little while upon the ground from which they have driven McClernand, rifling the pockets of the dead and robbing the wounded. General Pillow feels very well. He writes a despatch, which is telegraphed to Nashville,—
“On the honor of a soldier, the day is ours!”