Part I - Don's Metal Detecting Forum

file:///I|/civil war books/war of rebellion/38a.txt
wagon train, with the other trains of the corps, toward Snake Creek
Gap, to which place, on the 12th, I marched with my di.vision,
following that of Brigadier-General Baird, and arrived at a late
hour in the night. Early on the morning of the 13th, pursuant to
instructions received during the night previous. I replenished my
supply of ammunition, issued rations, and got my troops under arms
ready to march, but owiifg to the crowded condition of the only
road from our position into Sugar Valley, it was nearly noon before
we got fairly in motion. I moved out on the Resaca road about one
mile, and then, under the direction and personal supervision of ‘the
major-general commanding corps, formed to the left of this road in
double line, Carlin’s brigade on the right, King’s on the left~~and
Scribuer’s in reserve (then out as skirmishers), and advanced in a
• direction nearly east for about four miles over a very broken and
heavily wooded country, the last mile of this distance my skirmishers
driving those of the enemy before them. About one mile beyond
the military road, constructed by the enemy from Dalton to Calhoun,
we found the enemy in force and strongly posted, and the purpose
of the movement being, as I understood, accomplished. I halted, by
order of Major-General Palmer, corrected my lines, and waited for
further instructions. My division remained in this .position skiimishing
with the enemy until, late in the evening, relieved by that of
Major-General Butterfield. My instructions were as soon as relieved
to form on the left of General Butterfield’s division, my line being
slightly refused from his, but it was found impossible at the late
hour at which his troops got into position to form the new line with
any probability ~f its approximating to correctness as to position, or
scar~ely as to direction. At daybreak on the following morning,
Ca&p. L.] 1~EP011TS, ETC.—A1~MY O~ THE CUMBEELAND. 521
however, I formed my lines as directed, connecting my left with
General Baird’s division. The relative position of m.y brigades remained
the same as on the 13th. Having met Major-General
Palmer on the field, he informed me that the Fourteenth Corps,
General Davis’ division being in reserve, the Twenty-third Corps
and Fourth Corps to their left, would, as soon as the proper d~sposition
could be completed, swing to the right on the left of General
Butterfield as a pivot through an arc of 130 degrees or thereabouts,
or, at any rate, until the works and position of the enemy should be
developed, and directed me to hold my troops in readiness for. the
movement. My division began to move at 9 o’clock precisely; the
advance was necessarily slow, owing to the extremely rugged character
of the ground passed over, the dense underbrush, and the
necessity for deliberation on my part in order that the troops to the
extreme left might follow the movements. My left having swung
around by a march of something like one mile, I found the enemy
strongly posted and fortified on the hither slope and near the crest
of a long, elevated ridge, their right slightly refused from the direction
of my line. In front of their position was an open field of some
400 yards wide, sloping gradually down to a creek directly in my
front. The general course of this creek in front of my line was
nearly parallel to the enemy’s works; the bottom was in some places
miry with a considerable depth of water—in others quite the reverse,
its crooked channel filled in some places with a dense underbrush,
in others obstructed by fallen trees and drift. It afforded a serious
obstacle to the advance of troops in line, as the result proved, as
the land rose immediately from the creek in an abrupt bluff of
nearly the same height as the enemy’s position beyon an then
gradually sloped down again to the westward. With my skirmishers
posted along the creek, I reformed my lines in the woods behind the
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