Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 12.djvu/487

 The Monument at Munfordsville. 477

had fallen on the extreme right of the regiment, just as we reached the matted mass of beech, he and his horse torn to pieces by canister shot.

The Forty-fourth Mississippi, which, when the attack was made, was left in reserve on the crest of the hill, was soon ordered to ad- vance to the support of the Tenth. Reaching the felled timber, and taking shelter behind stumps and logs in the interval to the right of the Tenth, they, too, succeeded in silencing the enemy's fire in their front. Its brave commander, Lieutenant Colonel Moore, fell mortally wounded in the vain effort to reform his men in this inex- tricable mass of felled and pointed timber.

For awhile, as we were afterward informed, the assault by our right, made after the Tenth had become engaged, promised success. The Twenty-ninth, Ninth, and Seventh regiments, after a gallant charge, reached the wide and deep ditch around Fort Craig, and the fortifi- cations adjacent. These troops on reaching the ditch had been ordered to lie down. In that position they kept up their fire, and soon had the Federals so they dared not raise their heads above the parapet. The United States flag flying above the fort was riddled by the bullets from Walthall's guns They had been in- this position only a short time when a piece of artillery belonging to Scott's Loui- siana cavalry, which had come upon the field without the knowledge of General Chalmers, opened fire a short distance to the northeast, and unfortunately threw shell so near to our assaulting column as to cause some confusion in that part of our line, and prompted General Chalmers, who thought it a Federal gun, to order the Ninth to charge it. The Ninth had moved but a short distance, however, toward the artillery, when General Chalmers, who, in the meantime, had ridden in that direction, discovered that it was a friendly gun, and stopped the firing. He then gave orders for the Ninth to withdraw into a piece of woodland out of the enemy's range, and at the same time, for some reason satisfactory to himself, sent orders for the withdrawal of the troops assaulting Fort Craig. On receiving the order to with draw, Walthall left at the ditch his senior Captain, Robert Robson, with his company, a brave old soldier, nearing his sixtieth winter, with orders to keep up a fire, until the regiment, which he thought would not be in the meantime missed, got to the woods, several hun- dred yards off, and then to scatter and reach him as best they could. The result was, that the only casualities, in making the successful retreat, were two men wounded.

The gallantry of these troops, and the splendid handling of them,