ssured that we watched the
downward course of this messenger of mischief with the keenest
interest. Sometimes it looked as if it would hit our line, sure, but it
never did. And, as stated, we could only lie there and watch all this,
without the power on our part to do a thing in return. Such a situation
is trying on the nerves. But firing at our line was much like shooting
at the edge of a knife-blade, and their practice on us, which lasted at
least two hours, for all practical results, to quote Col. Engelmann,
"shoost hurt nobody." A private of Co. G had his head carried away by a
fragment of a shell, and a few others were slightly injured, and that
was the extent of our casualties. After enduring this cannonading for
the time above stated, Col. Engelmann became apprehensive that the
Confederate cavalry were flanking us, and trying to get between us and
Jackson, so he ordered our force to retire. We fell back, in good
order, for about a mile, then halted, and faced to the front again.
Reinforcements soon came out from Jackson, and then the whole command
advanced, but the enemy had disappeared. Our regiment marched in column
by the flank up the road down which the Confederates had made their
charge. They had removed their killed and wounded, but at the point
reached by their head of column, the road was full of dead horses. Old
Whitey was sprawled out in the middle of the lane, "with his nostrils
all wide," and more than a dozen bullet holes in his body. Near his
carcass I saw a bloody yarn sock, with a bullet hole square through the
instep. I made up my mind then and there, that if ever I happened to
get into the cavalry I would, if possible, avoid riding a white horse.

I will now say something about poor Sam Cobb, heretofore mentioned, and
then he will disappear from this history. Sam was with us at the
beginning of this affair on December 19th, but the very instant that
the enemy came in sight he broke from the ranks and ran, and never
showed up until we returned to Jackson some days later. He then had one
of his hands tied up, and claimed that he had been wounded in the
fight. The nature of his wound was simply a neat little puncture,
evidently made by a pointed instrument, in the ball of the forefinger
of one of his hands. Not a shot had been fired at us up to the time
when he fled, so it was impossible for his hurt to have been inflicted
by the enemy. It was the belief of all of us that he had put his
forefinger