advantage in ground. General Polk, the commanding general of the
Rebels, was not on the ground until near the close of the action,
and deserved no credit for the success of his men. General Pillow
and Brigadiers Cheatham and McGown, were the efficient commanders
that day.

Our wounded, about seven hundred, were carried to the rear during
the engagement, and forwarded to Memphis, and we returned and
recrossed the river to our camps about seven P.M., completely
exhausted. Our company lost, in killed and wounded, twenty-three;
the regiment, one hundred and fifteen.

The next day parties were detailed to bury the dead. Ours numbered
three hundred. We dug trenches six feet deep and four wide, and laid
the bodies in side by side, the members of each company together,
the priest saying over them his prayers; the whole closed by three
volleys of musketry. The Federal dead were also gathered, and buried
in like manner, except the religious services and military salute.
Our company buried their dead just before sunset; and when the
funeral dirge died away, and the volleys were fired over their
graves, many a rugged man, whose heart was steeled by years of
hardship and crime, shed tears like a child, for those bound to him
by such ties as make all soldiers brothers. One of the worst men in
the company excused this seeming weakness to a companion thus: "Tim,
I haven't cried this twenty year; but they were all good boys, and
my countrymen." The next day when the roll was called, and they
answered not, we thought of their ghastly faces as we laid them in
the trench, and hearts beat quick. When we sat down to eat and
missed a messmate, the query went round, "Will it be my turn next?"
A comrade's faults were now forgotten, his good qualities magnified,