tform when the first shells
hurtled past. Some dropped to their knees in prayer. The balance
followed the soldiers to a barn for cover. The kneeling ones were
quickly snatched to their feet and hurried away. Despite the shelling,
every passing confederate took time to fill his haversack with
hard-tack, sugar or anything that came handy and to secure as big a
slab of bacon as he could find transportation for. Our gun carriers
were regularly festooned with "Old Ned," as the boys called bacon. On
the first hill east of the station the battery went into position, and
as soon as the enemy appeared, opened on them and so continued to fire
on their advancing lines until ordered to leave the position, and away
we went at a gallop to the next available point and into battery again.
So we continued all that afternoon, assisting the infantry rearguard of
the army on that road, contesting the enemy's advance as much as
possible. When night came we continued in a slow retreat, the road
being blocked with wagons and artillery and in terrible condition with
mud and ruts. A mile or two per hour being the best we could do. About
midnight we came to a point where another road joined ours, along which
another Corps had retreated, with a high ridge ahead of us to cross,
mud being in many places axle deep. We had gotton half way up the hill,
when the Yanks attacked the rear squad of the other Corps below us. We
could see the opposing rifle flashes near the foot of the hill and the
minie balls were singing on all sides. It took all the power of the
teams and all the men who could get hold of each wheel to get those
wagons and artillery carriages over that hill, and out of reach of the
enemy while the infantry rear squad held our pursuers in check with a
midnight fight in which no man could see another twenty feet away.
Everybody and everything was of course coated with mud, but the Yankees
got nothing for their pains. When the pursuing forces of Osterhau's
division, sustained by Hooker's Corps reached Ringgold gap, Cleburne
had prepared an ambush for them and after holding them in check until
night, repulsing successive charges and inflicting heavy loss on the
enemy. Gen Hardie sent an order to Cleburne, who with Gen. Breckinridge
and staff, were at the gap to withdraw the rear squad to Dalton, a
former member of our company, by order of Gen. Breckinridge burned the
two bridges across the Chickamauga and that night the army took
position at R