Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 02.djvu/198

 transferred heavy reinforcements to meet us. About sunset we discovered that a new line of battle had been formed 300 yards in our front, in the edge of the timber. The fences had been cleared, so as to form breastworks of the rails, before we knew of this attack, and had the enemy charged us then, we would have been probably beaten.

But he gave us fifteen minutes, in which time Van Dorn brought up some guns in a position to enfilade his line, and quickly dismounted all of the cavalry within reach, to extend our line upon the left, and then we all charged with a yell, and the enemy, delivering a brief fire, broke and fled, and our whole line pursued him quite into his wagon trains.

It was not yet dark, we had every thing on the move, and Van Dorn was urging up all available troops to join in the continued pressure of the enemy, when he found General Price had already stopped the pursuit and ordered the troops to fall back to take up a position for the night.

We made our headquarters for the night at the Elkhorn tavern, where the enemy's had been in the morning. Price's corps had been hotly engaged from 10 A. M. till after sunset, and had been constantly victorious. We had now won the field, but we had lost very heavily. Generals Slack, McCulloch, McIntosh and Hebert were killed while General Price and many others were wounded, and our losses told upon us. The ammunition of the troops in action was exhausted, and to our dismay, when the reserve train of ammunition was sought for, it could not be found. The prudent and intelligent ordnance officer in charge of it had sent it off beyond Bentonville, about fifteen miles, and the enemy lay between! McCulloch's corps was much disorganized, and when it was found there was no fresh supply of ammunition for Price's troops, all idea of resuming the attack next morning was abandoned. Van Dorn decided to await attack on the ground he had won, and meantime to put his wagon trains upon a road towards Van Buren, and to make the best dispositions for a defensive movement in the morning. Our line was formed about 1,200 yards from the Elkhorn tavern, south of it, and was under command of General Henry Little, one of the best and bravest of the Missourians. With him was the brigade of Colonel Rives and Little's own brigade. All of these were staunch troops, veterans of many battles. He had also Bledsoe's battery, Wade's battery, McDonald's battery and