Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/519

38 exhaust the supply of some regiments. Numbers had provided themselves from the cartridge boxes of the dead and wounded enemy." Presently, aided by artillery fire from the trenches, directed by Colonel Baldwin, he was able to again advance and occupy the camp of the enemy, and a flank attack by the Second Kentucky completed the rout of the Federals.

Here, after six hours, fighting in the woods, Baldwin paused to get his bearings, and at this time Gen. B. R. Johnson, commanding the left wing, came up and moved off all the troops except the Twenty-sixth Mississippi and Twenty-sixth Tennessee. Finally, receiving no orders, Baldwin followed the example of other troops and returned to the trenches. He mentioned with approval the bravery of Lieut.-Col. F. M. Boone and Maj. T. F. Parker, Twenty-sixth; Maj. W. N. Brown, Twentieth; Lieut. S. D. Harris, Fourteenth, acting assistant adjutant-general; and Thomas A. Burke and T.F. Carrington, privates of the Fourteenth, who acted as aides, the latter receiving a serious wound.

The action of the brigade of General Clark, commanded by Colonel Davidson previous to the battle and in the battle by Col. John M. Simonton, First regiment, is well described in the latter’s report. After Baldwin was in action his brigade advanced to the front, and was soon hotly engaged with the left of McClernand's division of the Federal army, which they gallantly drove from position, advancing a mile and a half in their victorious career. Lieut. R. B. Ryan, who escaped capture and made the first report of the brigade's service, estimated that the First Mississippi seemed to have lost half of its numbers, while the Third (23d) escaped with less casualties.

Colonel Drake's brigade fought on the right of Johnson's line and was accompanied by that general, who reported that, "under its very gallant, steady and efficient commander it moved in admirable order, almost