Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/663

176 conspicuous." The gallantry of Lieutenant-Colonel Fiser, and Captain Cherry of the Seventeenth, wounded, and the timely services of Donald, Brown, Wright and Greene, Captain Barksdale, adjutant-general, and Captain Hobart, inspector-general, were also noted. About the middle of December this brigade was sent against the enemy at Clinch Mountain gap, who decamped at its approach and was pursued by Major Donald to Notchey gap.

Meanwhile, Walthall's Mississippi brigade had fought the famous battle of Lookout Mountain, "above the clouds," as it has been called with poetic license, opposed to the army corps of Joe Hooker. Walthall's brigade was under arms all night, before November 24th, in a line extending on the west slope of Lookout toward the north side which faces Chattanooga; while his pickets, under Lieut.-Col. McKelvaine, covered the creek of the same name at the base of the mountain for two miles from its mouth. He was aware of a considerable movement on the part of the enemy, concealed by a dense fog, and as it lifted from the valley a brigade was seen to go into action against his pickets. The Thirty-fourth was sent to strengthen the picket line, and the Thirtieth and Twenty-ninth were posted to meet the threatened attack, and parts of the Twenty-seventh and Twenty-fourth held in reserve. The Federals opened a heavy artillery fire, and attacked in front, while Geary with his division and part of another came up on the left. The gallant Mississippians fought from crag to crag, some of them holding their positions until surrounded and captured; but they were scarcely more than a skirmish line, and were steadily forced back. As the Federal advance came up to the Twenty-seventh and Twenty-fourth, those regiments delivered a scorching fire that withered the enemy’s lines and staggered them for a moment; but they poured on around the flanks of the Confederates, and the remnant