Thomas County cat., 1890-08-28

and SAID nOtn1n8 more on the SuDJeCL.
We returned within our lines. the
Captain reported what we had done.
an6 we were ordered to the regiment
at the corral. We had scarcely ar
rived there when the battle opened in
earnest, and the Confederates made
their grand assault. The artillery and
masketry firing was the heaviest l
ever heard. It was so concentrated
that no part of the firing was at
any great distance from where | was.
In the midst of the heaviest fighting
an order came for our regiment to
make charge on the extreme right,
where the enemy was overlapping our
line. We started our horses on the
run amid the contrabands, suffers,
teamsters, stragglers, everything go
ing to the rear. The enemy had ap-
parently been successful, and had
broken our line in one place, and got
into the streets of Corinth, thus Great
ing great CONSERVATION among the
non-combatantS.
"As we ran our horses close to the
forts the heavy guns were firing rapid
ly over our heads, and the dust and
smoke were so thick we could not see
and could scarcely breathe. Just in
front and under the guns my horse.
probably blinded by the smoke and
stunned by the noise. fell with me
against the stump of tree. Both the
horse and myself were too badly hurt
to get up for some little time. but an
artillery soldier who happened along
pulled the horse off me, and I lay
there on the ground until the battle
was nearly over, too badly hurt to be
particularly interested in anything.
,"After I got back to camp recov-
cred sufficiently along toward evening
to be helped on my horse and go in
search of the regiment. 1 went across
to the field hospital, Just east of the
forts, and saw there such sights as I
never saw on any other occasion. The
wounded had been brought in from the
battlefield by thousands, and there,
under awnings and trees, were many
operating tables, with surgeons, their
sleeves rolled up, bloody from head
to foot, plying their instruments
on the broken and torn and crushed
limbs of the unfortunate wounded. I
saw big army wagons and six-mule
teams loading up with the arms and
legs that had been cut off. There is
glory about being soldier. and seeing
danger and fighting, that never wore
off during our days of hunger and
thirst and hard marches and exposures,
but this sort of thing brings one down
to the dread, horrible realities of war
quicker than anything else.
II next went past Battery Robinet,
where I saw dead men lying thicker
than I ever saw them on any other
field, and on out the Chewalla road.
The battle had been over some hours
and nearly all the wounded had by this
time been removed. met an officer
coming from the front with his coat
off and his neck tied up, and was told
it was Colonel Mower, afterward one
of our best fighting corps commanders.
He had been shot across the back of
the neck in the morning, knocked
from his horse and taken pris-
oner When the enemy were
whipped they went away and left
him free in their field hospital, and he
started afoot to find his command. I
went over toward the Purdy road and
saw where some of the hardest fighting
had been done. On each side of gem
tie ravine or hollow the dead lay in
two long straight lines, one blue and
the other butternut. None of the dead
seemed more than a few feet out of
line. The lines looked like they were
dressed up for parade, and it was a
grim and CHASTITY one-their last.
Il found my regiment returning to
the corral, and that night we got some
rest, but still neither water nor feed
for the horses. The next morning we
started early after the retreating enc
my, went out the Purdy road, then
crossed over toward the Chewalla road,
and about noon watered and fed our
horses; this was on the 9Th, and it