Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 14.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[424] of the Eighteenth regiment and the three companies of the Twenty-first regiment, and posted the Thirteenth regiment on the right of the Telegraph road; the left wing, under Major Bradley, resting its left company under the brave Captain G. L. Donald immediately on the road; the right wing under Colonel Carter, Lieutenant-Colonel McElroy and the accomplished adjutant, E. Harmon, in rear of the redoubts on Lee's Hill occupied by Frazier and Carloton.

Colonel Wm. D. Holder, of Pontotoc, posted the Seventeenth regiment on the left of the Telegraph road, the right wing under the chivalrous Lieutenant-Colonel C. Fiser, of Panola county, and the left wing under the command of the brave Major W. R. Duff, of Calhoun county, and immediately engaged the advancing enemy. This timely and judicious disposition of our troops, and their stubborn daring, checked the enemy, and enabled me to reach the Telegraph road, with the Twenty-first regiment. The enemy, however, pushed forward his troops under cover of the brow of the hill and concealed by the smoke of the artillery, almost to the muzzles of the guns of the second company of Washington Artillery, shot down some of the horses, wounded several of the men and forced them to limber to the rear, leaving one gun.

The ranks were rapidly wasting away under the deadly fire. General Sedgwick was pushing his blue lines over Marve's Hill and up the plank road. His serried lines were fast encompassing Lee's Hill, and it was apparent that the Thirteenth and Seventeenth would soon be enveloped and crushed. Barksdale yielded before the impending shock and ordered a retreat.

We fell back along the Telegraph road about two miles to the Mine road. It was now about the middle of the afternoon, and Barksdale's brigade of fifteen hundred Mississippians, and seven guns of the Washington Artillery, with less than two hundred Louisianians, and one gun of Parker's battery, with about twenty Virginians, had been struggling and holding back from Lee's flank and rear Sedgwick's army, variously estimated from eighteen to thirty thousand, from the time he advanced from Deep Run on the 2d to 1 o'clock on the 3d of May. At the Mine road we met General Early with his division, which had been lying all day at Hamilton station, expecting Sedgwick to move that way. General Early immediately formed line of battle on the main road and across the Telegraph road. The enemy did not pursue us. A few wagons, mistaking the road, followed