Breckenridge had Tabue’s, Bowen’s and Statham’s brigades. General Gladden’s brigade of Withers’s division was placed on the right of Hardee’s line. It was composed of the Twenty-first, Twenty-fifth, Twenty-sixth Alabama, and First Louisiana, with Robertson’s battery. Hindman’s brigade joined upon Gladden’s. Gladden followed Colonel Moore’s force, and fell upon Prentiss’s camp.
Instantly there was a great commotion in the camp,—shouting, hallooing, running to and fro, saddling horses, seizing guns and cartridge-boxes, and forming in ranks. Gladden advanced rapidly, sending his bullets into the encampment. Men who had not yet risen were shot while lying in their tents.
But General Prentiss was all along his lines, issuing his orders, inspiring the men who, just awakened from sleep, were hardly in condition to act coolly. He ordered his whole force forward, with the exception of the Sixteenth Iowa, which had no ammunition, having arrived from Cairo on Saturday evening.
There was a wide gap between Prentiss’s right and Sherman’s left, and Hardee, finding no one to oppose him, pushed his own brigades into the gap, flanking Prentiss on one side and Sherman on the other, as you will see by a glance at the diagram on page 173.
Behind Gladden were Withers’s remaining brigades, Chalmers’s, and Jackson’s. Chalmers was on the right, farther east than Gladden. He had the Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth Mississippi, and Fifty-second Tennessee, and Gage’s battery.
Jackson had the Second Texas, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Alabama, and Girardey’s battery. Chalmers moved rapidly upon Prentiss’s left flank. Gage’s and Robertson’s batteries both opened with shell. Jackson came up on Prentiss’s right, and in a short time his six regiments were engaged with twelve of Bragg’s and two batteries.
They curled around Prentiss on both flanks, began to gain his rear to cut him off from the Landing, and separate him from Stuart’s brigade of Sherman’s division, which was a mile distant on the Hamburg road. The regiments on the left began to break, then those in the centre. The Rebels saw their advantage. Before them, dotting the hillside, were the much-coveted tents. They rushed on with a savage war-cry.
General Prentiss, aided by the cool and determined Colonel Peabody, rallied the faltering troops in front, but there was no power to stop the flood upon the flanks.
“Don’t give way! Stand firm! Drive them back with the bayonet!” shouted Colonel Peabody, and some Missourians as brave as he remained in their places, loading and firing deliberately.
“On! on! forward boys!” cried General Gladden, leading his men; but a cannon-shot came screaming through the woods, knocked him from his horse, inflicting a mortal wound. The command devolved on Colonel Adams of the First Louisiana.