Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1880-08-04

}, ance of an orderly sent by JET c
IS Davis, our division commander. The
/ orderly must have lost his way, as
d we did not march over half a mile
! before We ran right into rebe
o battery, not over 80 rods on ouI
Y left. If we had had skirmishers
S out, they would have found the
t battery before We reached il
;, and saved many lives, but our or
: derby lost the road and we had to
!, suffer for it, as he supposed us to
: be in the rear of our line of battle,
. but instead, he marched us through
: a ravine right on to this battery.
r The rebs opened their battery and
/ before our battery had a chance to
! wheel into position, nearly every
, horse attached TO it was shot.
You can all tell what would hap
pen in such case, being taken by
surprise. We fell back a piece,
reformed, charged the enemy in
front and recaptured every piece
of our artillery and one piece of
theirs, which we had to haul to the
rear by hand as there were only
i've horses to the seven pieces.
AT this conflict, as at any other
hard work, General Thomas APP
peared with his body guard, the
gallant 9th Michigan infantry, and
had the line established under his
own direction. From this the day
passed by skirmishing in our front,
but we could hear heavy firing on
both sides of us.
In the surprise of the morning,
my messmate was shot through the
eft arm, but, before he fell back,
he asked me to hold his gun over
my shoulder 50 that he could shoot
once. l did 50, and he fell back to
be captured the next day. There
were four brothers enlisted, and
two of them were killed at Bull
Run aud the other wounded.
After dark We received orders
again to move TO the left, and we
did so 10 be worse handled than in
the morning. They marched us
right between the regular brigade
aud the rebel line, so we had to
back out of the fire. While doing
SO, we found General Thomas again
to heal jeff. &. Davis mistake.
General Thomas said it would be
all right as it was only mistake.
We laid on our arms that night.
In the morning, being Sunday,
September 10Th, we did not en-
pect to do much fighting, but about
5 o'clock they commenced forming
the line of battle, and To our sat
isfaction we got relieved of being
reserve, and not being mislead by
every orderly. About 9 O'clock,
General Starkweather and his
acknowledgement inspected the regi-
ments. Coming to our company,
we were minus LIST Lieutenant, Ind
lieutenant, LIST sergeant, and all the
rest except two men and myself,
namely, high corporal. General
Starkweather asked me where the
rest of the company were, and /
told him that lieutenant Jackson
was lying behind a fence about
half mile from there with the
company. General Starkweather
ordered Inc to go and bring them
to the regiment, and if | was not
back in 20 minutes, he would have
me shot. Well, be did not get the
chance, as / made them double
quick and saved my bacon.
About ten o'clock the rebels in
front of us commenced to attack
Us and kept the same up until two
o'clock, when they slackened up.
Our battery had only one piece of
artillery left fit for use, with only
two horses, and when it fred its
last shot, General Starkweather,
who held the horses, was shot
in the heel and had to fall back.
Now we were without artillery.
The oath Illinois in our front was
out of ammunition, and we had
about from 8 to 10 rounds, and
our whole ammunition train was
back already to the rear. We
thought the whole army was in
position yet, but it was not, as the
l4th army corps alone was holding
that great rebel army in check, I'M
til line of defence could be form
ed at Chattanooga.
/ will state that from half past
ten until five o'clock, we were
lying down and loading and firing
in this position. We had sixty
rounds of cartridge in the morning,
with an addition of 10 rounds
received during the day.
At one time the rebels tried to
charge on us, but failed to do so,
and they left many wounded with
in 40 yards of us in o thicket of |
brush, which our artillery shelled
and set on fire, and many of the
poor creatures had to burn in our
sight.
About five o'clock, our colonel,
now in charge of the brigade, gave
orders to rise and fall back on the
second line of breastworks. We
rose up and tried to fall back. The !
order was: "About face, left in
'front.'" but the Johnnies heard our