fifteen feet down the opposite
side of that hill to get out of the way of the negroes, and
I would have jumped too, probably, if I had been on their
side, for I never yet saw anything in battle so terrible as
an infuriated negro.

"Gillem returned just as night was putting an end to the
fighting and in the approaching darkness we mistook his
column for a new column of the enemy coming in on our right
and rear. Burbridge hurried back with his victorious negroes
and was about to advance with the Twelfth Ohio Cavalry and
Eleventh Michigan, when the glad news came that the supposed
Confederates were Gillem's column returning to our support.

"During the night Breckenridge retreated in the direction of
the salt works, but Colonel Buckley, returning from the
direction of the lead mines with his brigade, and having got
in Breckenridge's rear at Seven Mile Ford, charged his
advance, capturing ten prisoners. Breckenridge, no doubt
thinking he had been outflanked and was about to be enclosed
between two columns, abandoned all idea of going to the salt
works and put back in confusion to Marion, where he took the
North Carolina road and fled over the mountains. Colonel
Bentley, with his Twelfth Ohio, was sent up with
Breckenridge's rear. The Confederates felled trees across
the road to retard Bentley's advance, but he cleared them
out and he and his gallant regiment hammered Breckenridge's
rear all the way into North Carolina."

The road to the Salt Works was thus opened and their destruction
accomplished by the bravery and matchless valor of the gallant Sixth.
Many of the regiment forfeited their lives in rescuing the force from
defeat, and securing a victory; those who survived the terrible
struggle no longer had opprobrious epithets hurled at them, but modestly
received the just encomiums that were showered upon them by the white
troops, who, amid the huzzas of victory, greeted them with loud shouts
of "Comrades!"

General Brisbin, continuing, says:

"There were many instances of personal bravery, but I shall
only mention one. A negro soldier had got a stump quite
close to the Confederate line, and despite all efforts to
dislodge him, there he stuck, picking off their men. The
Confederates charged the stump, but the Federal line
observing it concentrated their fire on