fortified position, bristling with artillery, between the two contending armies. On the right of Price’s Brigade the Eighth Kentucky, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel May, received the first attack, made by Colonel Lewis’ Sixth Kentucky, Confederate, followed in quick succession by a charge from Hanson’s and Pillow’s Brigades; then in successive strokes from right to left the blows fell all along Beatty’s line. Overborne by the numerical strength of the Confederate brigades, the gallant men of this veteran division, 2,500 strong fighting bravely, were hammered back by overwhelming force. For full ten minutes they stood in line, pouring a galling fire upon the oncoming line, which, leaving its course marked by the writhing forms of its fallen braves, pressed forward, overlapping the right, where they were met by Lieutenant-Colonel Evans with the reserves of the Twenty-first Kentucky, and by Colonel Swayne, with the Ninety-ninth Ohio. These regiments, changing front to the right, held their ground firmly and administered volley after volley upon the skirmishers of the Confederate Sixth Kentucky, who pushed forward toward the ford. The front line falling back, followed rapidly by the entire Confederate line, loading as they retired, and turning to fire upon their assailants, became intermingled with the reserves, when, in a confused mass, assailants and assailed, fighting hand to hand, moved in a resistless volume toward the river. The reserve regiments, the Ninth Kentucky, Lieutenant-Colonel Cram; Nineteenth Ohio, Lieutenant-Colonel Manderson, and the Eleventh Kentucky, Major Mottley, undaunted by the disaster upon the right, advanced through a thick undergrowth of wild briars, and came suddenly upon Adam’s and Preston’s Brigades, which, driving Fyffe’s Brigade and the Seventy-ninth Indiana before them, were moving with rapid strides toward Grose’s position on the extreme left. Meanwhile the brigades of Hanson and Pillow had gained positions to their right and the movement toward the ford threatened to cut these regiments still remaining on the left off from retreat. At Colonel Manderson’s suggestion, Colonel Grider now ordered his brigade to fall back to the river. Colonel Grider, bearing his regimental flag in his hand, rallied his brigade three times in succession while retiring, and checked the advance of the Confederate line by volleys of musketry. The pursuit of Beatty’s three brigades led the Confederate columns to the right of Grose, and as soon as it could be done with safety Livingston opened upon the advance with his artillery, but in obedience to an order from General Rosecrans crossed the river and reopened from the opposite shore.

The space between the river bank and the ridge occupied by Grose’s Brigade was now a scene of the wildest disorder. Instances of the most exalted courage were displayed. It was here that Corporal Hochersmith, color guard of the Twenty-first Kentucky, and Sergeant Gunn, of the same regiment, won the gold medals voted them by the legislature of their native State. When confronted by a squad of Lewis’ skirmishers, who demanded his flag, the brave corporal said: “You can take me but not my colors,” and threw the flag over their heads into the river, where it was seized by Sergeant Gunn and borne in safety through a shower of balls to the opposite shore, where the regiment immediately rallied around it.

It may well be understood that General Crittenden, under whose observation his old division had been driven from its position back across the river, was by no means an uninterested spectator of the scene. It had all passed so rapidly as to afford no time to reinforce the line when first assaulted, and when it had commenced falling back the west side of the river was evidently the best position to reform and reinforce it. His men had no sooner gained the low ground near the river than, turning to his chief of artillery, he