the brigade. The assaulting force was formed in column of battalions of
five companies each. The Second Iowa was in advance, with General Smith
in its centre, and followed in order by the Fifty-second Indiana,
Twenty-fifth Indiana, Seventh Iowa, and Fourteenth Iowa. Birge's
sharpshooters, deployed on each flank, opened a skirmishing fire. The
column advanced silently, without firing, crushed down the abattis,
covered the hill-side with battalions, heedless of the fire from the
garrison, pressed on to the works, leaped over, formed in line, and
drove the defending regiment to further shelter.

Just at this time General Buckner was gaining this, the extreme right of
the line of intrenchments, with Hanson's regiment, which had left it in
the morning for the sortie. Hanson pushed his men forward, but the works
were occupied. The Thirtieth Tennessee, which had been holding that
portion of the works during the day, fell back to another ridge or spur,
between the captured work and the main fort. Lauman's brigade pushed on
to assault that position. Hanson's regiment, the Third, Eighteenth, and
Forty-first Tennessee and Fourteenth Mississippi, came to the aid of the
Thirtieth; portions of Porter's and Graves' batteries were brought up.
The Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Tennessee, the garrison of the fort,
hastened out in support. General Smith sent for Cook's brigade and
artillery. Lieutenant-Colonel McPherson sent up two ten-pound Parrott
guns. Buckner held the inner ridge, to which his men had retired, and
intrenched it in the night. Smith held the works he had gained, an
elevation as high as any within the line. His battery established
there, enfiladed part of the line still held, and took in reverse nearly
the whole of the intrenchments. In the charge, the column, including
Birge's sharpshooters, but excluding the Fifty-second Indiana, lost 61
killed and 321 wounded; of these, the Second Iowa lost 41 killed and 157
wounded. General Smith, though sixty years old, spent the night without
shelter, on the captured ridge.

General Grant, having set in motion C.F. Smith's attack, rode to the
right and ordered the troops there to take the offensive and regain the
ground that had been lost. General Lewis Wallace moved with a brigade
commanded by Colonel Morgan L. Smith, and made of the Eighth Missouri
and Eleventh Indiana, in advance. These two regiments belonged to
Smith's division, and marched from Fort Henry to Donelson with Wallace.