My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field

by Charles Carleton Coffin

But the unchecked tide was flowing past Prentiss’s gallant band. Prentiss looked up to the right and saw it there, the long lines of men steadily moving through the forest. He galloped to the left and saw it there. The bayonets of the enemy were glistening between him and the brightening light in the east. His men were losing strength. They were falling before the galling fire, now given at short range. They were beginning to flee. He must fall back, and leave his camp, or be surrounded. His troops ran in wild disorder. Men, horses, baggage-wagons, ambulances, bounded over logs and stumps and through thickets in indescribable confusion. Colonel Peabody was shot from his horse, mortally wounded, and his troops, which had begun to show pluck and endurance, joined the fugitives.

Prentiss advised Hurlburt of the disaster. Hurlburt was prepared. He moved his division forward upon the double-quick. Prentiss’s disorganized regiments drifted through it, but his ranks were unshaken.

The Rebels entered the tents of the captured camp, threw off their old clothes, and helped themselves to new garments, broke open trunks, rifled the knapsacks, and devoured the warm breakfast. They were jubilant; they shouted, danced, sung, and thought the victory won. Two or three hundred prisoners were taken, disarmed, and their pockets searched. They were obliged to give up all their money, and exchange clothes with their captors, and then were marched to the rear.

While this was taking place in Prentiss’s division, Sherman’s pickets were being driven back by the rapid advance of the Rebel lines. It was a little past sunrise when they came in, breathless, with startling accounts that the entire Rebel army was at their heels. The officers were not out of bed. The soldiers were just stirring, rubbing their eyes, putting on their boots, washing at the brook, or tending their camp-kettles. Their guns were in their tents; they had a small supply of ammunition. It was a complete surprise.

Officers jumped from their beds, tore open the tent-flies, and stood in undress to see what it was all about. The Rebel pickets rushed up within close musket range and fired.

“Fall in! Form a line! here, quick!” were the orders from the officers.

There was running in every direction. Soldiers for their guns, officers for their sabres, artillerists to their pieces, teamsters to their horses. There was hot haste, and a great hurly-burly.

General Hardee made a mistake at the outset. Instead of rushing up with a bayonet-charge upon Sherman’s camp, and routing his unformed brigades in an instant, as he might have done, he unlimbered his batteries and opened fire.

The first infantry attack was upon Hildebrand’s brigade, composed of the Fifty-third, Fifty-ninth, and Seventy-sixth Ohio, and the Fifty-third Illinois, which was on the left of the division. Next to it stood Buckland’s brigade, composed of the Forty-eighth, Seventieth, and Seventy-second Ohio. On the extreme right, west of the church, was McDowell’s brigade, composed of the Sixth Iowa, Fortieth Illinois, and Forty-sixth Ohio. Taylor’s battery was parked around the church, and Waterhouse’s battery was on a ridge a little east of the church, behind Hildebrand’s brigade.

Notwithstanding this sudden onset, the ranks did not break. Some men ran, but the regiments formed with commendable firmness. The Rebel skirmishers came down to the bushes which border the brook south of the church, and began a scattering fire, which was returned by Sherman’s pickets, which were still in line a few rods in front of the regiments. There was an open space between the Fifty-seventh and Fifty-third regiments of Hildebrand’s brigade, and Waterhouse, under Sherman’s direction, let fly his shells through the gap into the bushes. Taylor wheeled his guns into position on both sides of the church.