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I was running along by the side of Bob Stout. General Preston Smith stopped me and asked if our brigade was falling back. I told him it was. He asked me the second time if it was Maney's brigade that was falling back. I told him it was. I heard him call out, "Attention, forward!" One solid sheet of leaden hail was falling around me. I heard General Preston Smith's brigade open.
They were looked upon as simply "hangers on," or in other words, as yellow sheep-killing dogs, that if you would say "booh" at, would yelp and get under their master's heels. Mike Snyder was General George Maney's "yaller dog," and I believe here is where Joe Jefferson, in Rip Van Winkle, got the name of Rip's dog Snyder.
Colonel Heiman, with his brigade and Maney's battery, strengthened by the Forty-second Tennessee, were to remain in position and thence aid the attack while it was going on. The Thirtieth Tennessee was to occupy the trenches vacated by Buckner, while the Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Tennessee were to act as garrison to the main work the fort.
Most of our army had already passed through hungry and disheartened, and here were all these stores that had to be destroyed. Before setting fire to the town, every soldier in Maney's and Polk's brigades loaded himself down with rations. It was a laughable looking rear guard of a routed and retreating army.
Our regiment crossed a stream, being preceded by Wharton's Texas Rangers, and we were ordered to attack at once with vigor. Here General Maney's horse was shot. From this moment the battle was a mortal struggle. Two lines of battle confronted us.
They used canister against those columns with terrible effect. To show you how small a thing will sometimes change the prospects in a battle, one of Hardee's Divisions coming towards me got entangled in something at that time I could not tell what, but on going to the ground afterwards I found that it was a mill-pond that exposed the flank of Maney's Division that was next to Walker's.
About dark a small body of cavalry dashed in ahead of us and captured and carried off one piece of artillery and Colonel John F. House, General Maney's assistant adjutant-general. We will have to form line of battle and drive them back. Well, we quickly form line of battle, and the Yankees are seen to emerge from the woods about two hundred yards from us.
Three Divisions struck my Corps, and one Division, Cleburn's, struck Blair's Corps, and caught his left and rear; but after the third attack on my front Maney's Division was sent around to join Cleburn, and joined in the fiercest attack of the day, about 4 p. m., upon Leggett's and Smith's Divisions after their line had been refused and formed almost at right angles at Leggett's Hill, and reaching out towards me, with Waglin's Brigade on their left.
Toward noon, as McClernand's right was rolled up and began to crumble, Buckner, who had cheered his men, now led his division farther to his right, near to Heiman's position in the intrenchments; there he approached under cover till near Wallace's line. Three batteries supported his charge Maney's, Porter's, and Graves', these three batteries concentrating their fire on Wallace's artillery.
Maney's guns hurled shrapnel into their faces. To Morrison's right and to Haynie's left, the long line of rifle-pits was a line of musketry, and from projecting points the batteries sent their fire. Morrison was wounded. His men could not climb over the intrenchment. The regiments recalled, fell back in order out of fire.
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