gainst our attack.

Time was lost during the day in building rough bridges across creeks
waist deep to infantry, which had better have been waded, for the few
hours so lost, prevented a successful attack at Spring Hill which Hood
had planned to demolish Schofield.

Forrest was trying to delay their advance toward Franklin, and
sometimes succeeded in getting possession of pike for a short time,
capturing teamsters shooting down teams in their harness and setting
fire to their wagons.

But their rear passed Spring Hill before daylight the next morning,
with Hood's infantry pursuing their rearguard closely into Franklin,
where a strong line of entrenchments had been prepared around the edge
of the city from Harpeth river above the same below town, and a strong
line of rifle pits out in front of the regular trenches.

On the afternoon of Nov. 30, 1864, Hood attacked these entrenchments
about 4:00 p.m. Reynolds' brigade was on the right of the pike,
somewhat to the right of the historic genhouse. As this brigade started
in the charge on the first line of rifle pits, Lumsden's command was
close behind with no weapons but their bare hands. Gen. Reynolds
noticed it and riding up called out to Capt. Lumsden: "Captain, take
your men back behind the hill to our rear." And so it was done; though
as soon as our infantry reached the valley and the bullets ceased to
fly so thickly about the top of the hill, the whole company was soon at
the top of the ridge, watching the terrible struggle in our front over
the Federal entrenchments on the outskirts of Franklin.

Away in the night, the flashing rifles revealed the firing of two
armies with a bank of six feet of earth between them, until finally it
gradually ceased. Before daylight we got certain intelligence that the
enemy was gone through Corporal Tom Owen, gunner to 2nd piece, who with
another prospecting companion or two had been into the town and
returned with a bucket of molasses and some other eatables.

Here we were left by Gen. Reynolds' brigade, and where our horses, guns
and caissons came up, Lumsden's battery was again in its usual fighting
trim, and moved on to Nashville where it was on Dec. 4th, in the front
trenches on the left of the Grannary White Pike, in the yard of a fine
brick house, which the enemy had destroyed just outside of their
fortifications, known as the "Gales house". Our lines were so close to
those of the enemy across a narrow valley of cleared fie