side, it
seems, was so confident that he could hold his own with Longstreet, that
he proposed to allow Longstreet to cross the Tennessee so that it would
not be possible for him to return to General Bragg in time to aid him in
the coming fight.

So, on the night of the 14th, it was decided to fall back, and on the
15th General Burnside gave orders to retreat slowly as far as Lenoir's.
Our battery remained in camp all this time, ready to move. It was not
until 5 P. M., on the 15th, that we began to move on the main road to
Campbell's station. This night march was the most horrid of all my
nearly four years' experience in the United States Army. Language will
fail to do it justice. I was chief of the left section and brought up
the rear, or was supposed to. It had rained for twenty-four hours and
the frost was about all out of the ground. The soil was a rich clay, two
or three feet in depth. Our horses were not very strong, and after they
had dragged the guns and caissons about a mile, their strength was gone.

I was instructed to retreat slowly and in case our rear guard, composed
of infantry and cavalry, should find it necessary to make a stand, I was
to go into battery. The right and center sections had gone far ahead of
me, as the road was not cut up so bad for them, and it literally seemed,
in the language of the poet Horace, that the "Devil would take the
hindmost." After the first mile we came to a long, deep bed of sticky
mud. I rode in advance, and found that about a half mile ahead there was
a little knoll of cleared land, comparatively dry, and skirted by a
high, worm fence of good oak rails. So I went back and ordered an
advance. By pushing hard, we were able to move our tired teams. Before
we had made 200 yards, we were stalled. Then we all, non-commissioned
officers, privates and myself, put our shoulders to the wheels and made
another 200 yards. We were all wet inside by sweat and outside by mud
and water. Never have I seen men do better. At last, somehow, near
morning, we reached the knoll, a mile and a half from camp, physically
used up. The caissons in front with guns to the rear, we drew up by the
roadside and replenished the smouldering fires with rails. Our horses,
poor things, were reeling, scarcely able to stand under the weight of
their harness.

One of the buglers had been detailed to accompany me, and I sent him
forward to report to the captain our condition and to ask for orders.
Meantime, th