artillery and infantry
ammunition were used from the 4th corps train alone." Company E had one
man wounded. In view of the fact that General J. D. Cox, in his writing on
the battle, has left the impression that the two brigades doing outpost
duty continued their retreat past the main line to the river, I feel that
in justice to those brigades (and more especially to company E, 26th and
company D, 65th Ohio, both Morrow County companies), I should say a few
words more. I have never yet seen in any official report a single
statement justifying his position. Cox on that day was in command of the
23rd corps. It was his line that was broken at the Carter House and it was
Opdyke's brigade of our division that, without orders, started the
countercharge which, with the assistance of Lane's comrades and part of
the 23rd corps, reestablished the continuity of the line. Either of those
three brigades, called Sheridan's old division,[6] have more regiments
listed among Fox's three hundred than has the entire corps commanded on
that occasion by Cox. When we started from our first position, exposed on
the plain, it became necessary for us to make speed and clear the field in
front of our main line that our men in the works might open fire. In this
hasty retreat it was but natural for the men to incline to the left or
east toward the pike or road by which we had retreated from Columbia, and
some of the extreme left of our regiment reached the works near the
Carter House and found them already vacated by our troops and occupied by
the enemy, and two or three of company B were taken prisoners after
reaching the main line. Of these, Sergeant David Bragg, now living in
Columbus, Ohio, and one of the oldest railroad mail clerks now in the
service, was one. From the recent call for volunteers and the draft, quite
a large assignment of new troops had been made to some of the regiments in
Lane's and Conrad's brigades. (Our regiment received none.) These new
troops reached us while on the retreat from Pulaski but a few days before.
They had never been drilled and it is probable that a large share of them
may have continued their flight beyond the main line. Opdyke's, Lane's and
Conrad's brigades (2nd division, 4th army corps) lost more men than the
entire other four divisions of infantry and the cavalry corps that was
present, and as a rule, if you follow the trail of blood, you are keeping
close to the fighting line.

The veterans of that old