of battle. But Breckinridge could not long hold
his position. Why we were not ordered forward to follow up his success,
I do not know; but remember, reader, I am not writing history. I try
only to describe events as I witnessed them.

We marched back to the old church on the roadside, called New Hope church,
and fortified, occupying the battlefield of the day before. The stench
and sickening odor of dead men and horses were terrible. We had to
breathe the putrid atmosphere.

The next day, Colonel W. M. Voorhies' Forty-eighth Tennessee Regiment
took position on our right. Now, here were all the Maury county boys got
together at New Hope church. I ate dinner with Captain Joe Love, and
Frank Frierson filled my haversack with hardtack and bacon.

BATTLE OF ZION CHURCH, JULY 4TH, 1864

The 4th day of July, twelve months before, Pemberton had surrendered
twenty-five thousand soldiers, two hundred pieces of artillery, and other
munitions of war in proportion, at Vicksburg. The Yankees wanted to
celebrate the day. They thought it was their lucky day; but old Joe
thought he had as much right to celebrate the Sabbath day of American
Independence as the Yankees had, and we celebrated it. About dawn,
continued boom of cannon reverberated over the hills as if firing a
Fourth of July salute. I was standing on top of our works, leveling them
off with a spade. A sharpshooter fired at me, but the ball missed me
and shot William A. Graham through the heart. He was as noble and brave
a soldier as ever drew the breath of life, and lacked but a few votes
of being elected captain of Company H, at the reorganization. He was
smoking his pipe when he was shot. We started to carry him to the rear,
but he remarked, "Boys, it is useless; please lay me down and let me die."
I have never in my life seen any one meet death more philosophically.
He was dead in a moment. General A. J. Vaughan, commanding General
Preston Smith's brigade, had his foot shot off by a cannon ball a few
minutes afterwards.

It seemed that both Confederate and Federal armies were celebrating the
Fourth of July. I cannot now remember a more severe artillery duel.
Two hundred cannon were roaring and belching like blue blazes. It was
but a battle of cannonade all day long. It seemed as though the
Confederate and Federal cannons were talking to each other. Sometimes a
ball passing over would seem to be mad, then again some would seem to be
laughing, som