thrown; but on the outside, where there was no ditch, it was so low that a battle line could march over it without halting. The ground ascended with an easy grade from our position back to Cox’s line, and all the intervening space, as well as a wide expanse to our left, was as bare as a floor of any obstruction. In our front was a wide valley extending to the Winsted Hills. This valley was dotted with a few farm-buildings, and there were also some small areas of woodland, but much the greater portion of it consisted of cleared fields. As our line was first established the Sixty-fifth Ohio was on the left of the brigade, but it was afterwards withdrawn, leaving the Sixty-fourth Ohio on the left and three companies, H, K, and B, were partially refused to cover the left flank. My position was at the refused angle.

About the time that we began to fortify, my attention was called to a group of mounted officers in a field on the side of the Winsted Hills, to the east of the Columbia Pike, and about a mile and a half in our front. This group undoubtedly consisted of General Hood and his staff. An officer who was present with Hood has stated that from their position they had a good view of Cox’s line and that after giving this line a hasty survey through his field-glass, General Hood slapped the glass shut with an emphatic gesture and decisively exclaimed, “We will attack!” Staff officers then began to gallop forth from the group with orders for the troops to form for assault.

At the angle where I was, the view of the valley directly in our front and to our right was shut off by a piece of woodland a short distance in advance of our position, so that we did not see anything of the movements of Cheatham’s corps, which formed astride the Columbia Pike. Looking up the valley to our left front was a wide expanse of cleared fields and in these fields we plainly saw the movements of a large part of Stewart’s corps. They first came into view from behind a body of timber over towards the river, deploying from column on the right by file into line on double quick. As fast as the troops could be marched up from the rear Stewart extended his lines over towards the pike. We could see all their movements so plainly, while they were adjusting their lines, that there was not a particle of doubt in the mind of any man in my vicinity as to what was coming. Moreover the opinion was just as universal that a big blunder was being committed in compelling us to fight with our flank fully exposed in the midst of a wide field, while in plain sight in our rear was a good line of breastworks with its flank protected by the river. The indignation of the men grew almost into a mutiny and the swearing of those gifted in profanity exceeded all their previous efforts in that line. Even the green drafted men could see the folly of our position, for one of them said to me, “What can our generals be thinking about in keeping us out here! We can do no good here. We are only in the way. Why don’t they take us back to the breastworks?”

The regiment contained a number of men who had not reënlisted when the regiment had veteranized and whose time had already expired. They were to be mustered out as soon as we got back to Nashville and, with home so nearly in sight after more than three years of hard service, these men were especially rebellious. First Sergeant Libey of Company H, was a non-veteran, and was also a fine specimen, mentally and physically, of the best type of our volunteer soldiers. When the enemy was approaching he twice got up from the line and started for the breastworks, vehemently declaring that he would not submit to having his life thrown away, after his time was out, by such a stupid blunder. The little squad of non-veterans belonging to the company both times got up and started to go with him and both times they all returned to the line on the profane order of their captain, “God damn you, come back here.” A few minutes later the sergeant was killed while we were retreating to the breastworks.

It took two hours, from two till four o’clock, for the corps of Cheatham and Stewart to come up and get into position and then they advanced to the assault in heavy lines of battle. We kept the spades flying until they had approached within range of our skirmish line, which fired a few shots and then began to retreat rapidly. Then the spades were dropped and the men taking their muskets squatted down behind the low streak of earth they had thrown out to receive the coming onset. A little later Company E, from the skirmish line, came scurrying back, the men, with very serious looks on their faces, settling down with the line like a covey of flushed birds dropping into cover.

All that has been related concerning Conrad’s brigade took place in full view of that part of Cox’s line extending from the river on our left to the Columbia Pike, and if there had been any previous doubt in the minds of any of these on-looking thousands as to Hood’s intention, his determination to assault was as plainly advertised as it possibly could be during the intense minutes that it took his army to march in battle line from the place of its formation to our advanced position. General Cox has claimed that Wagner’s division was ordered to report to him and that he was in immediate command of all the troops engaged in the battle. By his own statement he was on a knoll in the rear of Stiles’ brigade, on the left of his line, where he had the best view of the whole field. From this knoll he had been watching the preparations for attack, and all the time directly under his eyes was Conrad’s brigade busily engaged in fortifying to resist that attack. If Wagner was disobeying his orders by remaining in front too long, as was given out a few days later when he was made a scapegoat for the blunder of his position, Cox was watching him do it and took no measures to prevent it. If it was Cox’s expectation that Wagner would withdraw the two brigades at the last moment, he must have known better when he saw Conrad’s brigade squat down behind their half-built breastwork preparatory to giving battle. There was even then time, if prompt action had been taken, for a staff officer to gallop to the front, before the firing began, with a peremptory order for Conrad and Lane to get out of the way; but Cox, fresh from a personal conference with Schofield, to whom he had reported the situation and whose orders he had received with reference to holding the position, looked quietly on and thereby approved of Wagner’s action.

It was a pleasant, hazy, Indian summer day, and so warm that I was carrying my overcoat on my arm. When the line squatted down I folded the coat into a compact bundle and placed it on the edge of the bank in rear of my company and sat on it, with my feet in the shallow ditch. By craning my neck, I could look over our low parapet. The battle was opened by a rebel cannon, which, unnoticed by us, had taken position on a wooded knoll off our left front over towards the river. The first shot from this cannon flew a little high, directly over the angle where I was sitting. The second shot dropped short, and I was thinking with a good deal of discomfort that the third shot would get the exact range and would probably lift some of us out of that angle; but before it came our line had opened fire on the approaching rebel line and I became so much interested in that fire that I never knew whether there was a third shot from the cannon.

Our fire checked them in front, for they halted and began to return it, but for a minute only, for, urged on by their officers they again came forward. Their advance was so rapid that my company had fired only five or six rounds to the man when the break came. The salient of our line was