Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/571

90 and Lovell on his right, after some heavy skirmishing.

By ten o'clock all the Federal skirmishers were driven into the intrenchments, and the attack was soon begun by Lovell's division, and extended gradually along the whole line. Although a belt of fallen timber, or abatis, about four hundred yards in width, extended along the whole line of intrenchments, neither this nor the resistance made by the Federals from their sheltered position sufficed to check the triumphant progress of the heroic Southerners, and by half-past one o’clock the whole line of outer works was carried, and several pieces of artillery were taken.

Price's men carried the works in their front in about twenty minutes, and advanced to within a mile of Corinth, where at three o'clock the fight was renewed with great fierceness. The enemy was well protected and his artillery, posted on commanding elevations, wrought havoc among the Confederates, who were compelled to fight in the open and on account of the nature of the ground could bring little artillery into action. After a contest of two hours, the indomitable pluck of the Confederates again prevailed, and the enemy took refuge in his innermost works around the town. At the same time Lovell drove the enemy across Indian creek, made an irresistible assault upon the Federal rifle-pits, afterward carried a strong redoubt, and by the close of the day was in line on the bridge south of the railroad, near Price, with Villepigue and Bowen in front and Rust in reserve. Thus, night coming on, the victorious army slept upon their arms within six hundred yards of Corinth.

In this successful onslaught, the sons of Mississippi were unsurpassed in valorous achievement, and many of them lost their lives or fell with severe wounds. Most notable among the dead was Col. John D. Martin, who fell mortally wounded while leading his brigade in a charge against an angle in the outer works. Colonel Leigh, of the Forty-third, was