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er the remnant of Hood's Army (after Franklin) had aligned itself before Nashville and entrenched somewhere about December 1st to 3rd, it being perhaps a mile or more from extreme left of Hood's Army to the Cumberland River. Gen. Chalmers with Cavalry, and the remnant of Ector's Brigade of infantry as a support, guarding the gaps between left of Hood's entrenchments at Hillsboro pike, to Cumberland River. From the date of our arrival at fort location we had rain snow, and sleet, and the ground frozen hard, so that it was impossible to make any rapid progress on the redoubt laid off for 4 embrasures for our 4 Napoleon guns. Stretched blankets and the tarpaulins from for our guns and ammunition were the only cover for officers or men. I well remember that, the day before the battle of the 15th, my servant Jim Bobbett brought me a change of clean under clothing, for which I had to scrape off the snow on a log at Richland Creek, strip and bathe in its icy waters to make a change. By the 15th (the day of the battle) we had manerals so long. At my gun we had lost private Horton and Corporal Gunner Ed. King. Hilen L. Rosser at another gun had part of his head shot away. That night as I was pouring some water for Lumsden to wash, he was picking something out of his beard, and said: "Maxwell, that is part of Rosser's brains", out of the 40 men that we had at guns, we had only 22 left, balance having been killed or captured. A Federal officer rode around Lieut. A. C. Hargrove and demanded his surrender, and cut down at his head with his sabre. Hargrove caught the blow on his arm, but it beat down his arm to his head enough to "hurt like thunder", as Hargrove expressed it. Hargrove grabbed a loose tree branch and struck at Yank's horse which about that time got a bullet from our infantry line and ran away from Hargrove, so that he made it to our new line. That night we buried Horton near the Franklin pike, where we bivouaced. I cut his name on a head board, and Command to which he belonged. A detail was sent to the house that had been used as a hospital to bring his body. A long, tall, red-headed private, John Walker, was one of that detail. He had been carrying a great long navy revolver for months for use in such circumstances. When asked how many times he shot it. He laughed and said it was as much as he could do to persuade himself that he was
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