Eighty of the horses of Houghtaling's battery having been
killed, an attempt was made to bring his guns back by hand over the
rocky ground, but it could not be done, and we had to abandon them.
Hescock also had lost most of his horses, but all his guns were
saved. Bush's battery lost two pieces, the tangled underbrush in the
dense cedars proving an obstacle to getting them away which his
almost superhuman exertions could not surmount. Thus far the bloody
duel had cost me heavily, one-third of my division being killed or
wounded. I had already three brigade commanders killed; a little
later I lost my fourth--Colonel Schaefer.
The difficulties of withdrawing were very great, as the ground was
exceptionally rocky, and the growth of cedars almost impenetrable for
wheeled carriages. Retiring sullenly under a heavy fire, while the
general line was reformed to my right and rear, my division was at
length drawn through the cedars and debouched into an open space near
the Murfreesboro' pike, behind the right of Palmer's division. Two
regiments of Sill's brigade, however, on account of the conformation
of the ground, were obliged to fall back from the point where
Woodruff's brigade of Davis's division had rallied after the disaster
of the early morning.
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