at Mission
Ridge, the storming of Lookout Mountain by Geary's division of Hooker's
Corps, and the no less thrilling spectacle in front of Kenesaw, when the
brave and lamented Harker and McCook, with 2,000 men, were launched
against a fortified position, bristling with artillery, between the two
contending armies. On the right of Price's Brigade the Eighth Kentucky,
commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel May, received the first attack, made by
Colonel Lewis' Sixth Kentucky, Confederate, followed in quick succession
by a charge from Hanson's and Pillow's Brigades; then in successive
strokes from right to left the blows fell all along Beatty's line.
Overborne by the numerical strength of the Confederate brigades, the
gallant men of this veteran division, 2,500 strong fighting bravely, were
hammered back by overwhelming force. For full ten minutes they stood in
line, pouring a galling fire upon the oncoming line, which, leaving its
course marked by the writhing forms of its fallen braves, pressed forward,
overlapping the right, where they were met by Lieutenant-Colonel Evans
with the reserves of the Twenty-first Kentucky, and by Colonel Swayne,
with the Ninety-ninth Ohio. These regiments, changing front to the right,
held their ground firmly and administered volley after volley upon the
skirmishers of the Confederate Sixth Kentucky, who pushed forward toward
the ford. The front line falling back, followed rapidly by the entire
Confederate line, loading as they retired, and turning to fire upon their
assailants, became intermingled with the reserves, when, in a confused
mass, assailants and assailed, fighting hand to hand, moved in a
resistless volume toward the river. The reserve regiments, the Ninth
Kentucky, Lieutenant-Colonel Cram; Nineteenth Ohio, Lieutenant-Colonel
Manderson, and the Eleventh Kentucky, Major Mottley, undaunted by the
disaster upon the right, advanced through a thick undergrowth of wild
briars, and came suddenly upon Adam's and Preston's Brigades, which,
driving Fyffe's Brigade and the Seventy-ninth Indiana before them, were
moving with rapid strides toward Grose's position on the extreme left.
Meanwhile the brigades of Hanson and Pillow had gained positions to their
right and the movement toward the ford threatened to cut these regiments
still remaining on the left off from retreat. At Colonel Manderson's
suggestion, Colonel Grider now ordered his brigade to fall back to the
river. Colonel Grider, bearing his