salient. The enemy, in attempting to press their advantage, massed their troops and made repeated assaults with overwhelming odds on the troops sent to oppose their further progress within our lines. Rodes sent from time to time urgent messages for more troops. Brigade after brigade was ordered to his assistance as they could be spared from other portions of the line. On the receipt of one of these messages from Rodes, General Lee sent me to our extreme right, occupied by General Mahone, to bring up your brigade. You moved rapidly across the open space in rear of the Courthouse. When we had reached a point on the Courthouse road, near General Lee's position on the line, the brigade was halted for a few minutes. General Lee rode up alone during this halt, and gave orders that you should move on at once to General Rodes' assistance; and, as the column moved on, he rode at your side at its head. We soon came under the fire of the enemy's artillery. This excited General Lee's horse, and as he was in the act of rearing, a round shot passed under his belly, very near the General's stirrup. The men of the brigade cried out: "Go back, General! Go back! For God's sake, go back!" and perhaps some made a motion to seize his bridle. He then said, "If you will promise me to drive those people from our works, I will go back!" The men shouted their promise with a will. General Lee then gave me orders to guide the brigade to General Rodes. We found General Rodes near the famous spring within a few rods of the line of battle held by our exhausted troops. As the column of Mississippians came up at a double-quick, an aide-de-camp came to General Rodes with a message from Ramseur that he could hold out only a few minutes longer unless assistance was at hand.
Your brigade was thrown instantly into the fight, the column being formed into line under a tremendous fire and on very difficult ground. Never did a brigade go into fiercer battle under greater trials; never did a brigade do its duty more nobly. The entire salient was not recaptured, but the progress of the enemy was checked, and they were driven into a narrow space in the angle which they had occupied.
The disaster of the morning was retrieved, and our troops held their difficult position under a heavy, unceasing fire during the remainder of the day and the entire night. They were withdrawn before daylight on the morning of the 13th to the rifle pits constructed under Gordon's supervision, while the battle was raging a short distance in rear of the old line. The enemy abandoned the captured salient on the same day as useless to them, or perhaps as a ruse preparatory to a grand assault on our left, ordered by General Grant at daylight on the 14th (this we learned from captured copies of his battle orders). His troops, however, failed to come up to the attack.
The day of the salient, which began in disaster to us, did not close without many shattering blows to the attacking column.
Of the incident of the battle of the Wilderness on the 6th of
