Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/473

446 brave and vigilant. After his exchange he served with his regiment, the brigade under General Pettus, in the battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, Rocky Face near Dalton, Resaca, New Hope church, Kenesaw, the various battles around Atlanta, and at Jonesboro, The day after the battle at Jonesboro he took command of Cumming's brigade, which he reorganized. On the 17th of September he was commissioned brigadier-general, with temporary rank. In December it was made permanent. In the Tennessee campaign, under Hood, he commanded Cantey's old brigade, the Seventeenth, Twenty-sixth and Twenty-ninth Alabama, and Thirty-seventh Mississippi, in Walthall's division, At Franklin, Shelley's brigade was first held in reserve of the line of battle, at the center of Stewart's corps, but was soon put in the front line as the advance was made. Charging forward impetuously, the enemy was swept in disorder from the outer works, but in crossing the open plain that intervened before the inner works, the brigade was torn at every step by a destructive artillery and musketry fire. Finally they reached an abattis. "Over this," General Walthall reported, "no organized force could go, and here the main body of my command, both front line and reserve, was repulsed in confusion; but over this obstacle, impossible for a solid line, many officers and men (among the former Brigadier-General Shelley) made their way, and some, crossing the ditch in its rear, were captured and others killed or wounded in the effort to mount the embankment. Numbers of every brigade gained the ditch and there continued the struggle, with but the earthwork separating them from the enemy, until late in the night." In this famous assault Shelley's brigade lost 432 killed and wounded out of 1,100 engaged, but the intrepid commander escaped unhurt, though his horse was shot under him and his clothing pierced by seven balls. At the battle of Nashville, Shelley and his brigade were again distinguished in manful struggle in line on the