the camps they had taken, and check this flank movement, retreat became necessary.  About nine A.M.  I rode to General Beauregard for orders; when returning, I heard the report that General Buell had been killed and his body taken toward Corinth.  This report that the Federal commander, as many supposed Buell to be, was killed, and his body taken, revived the flagging hopes of the Confederates.  Of the fluctuations of the battle from nine A.M. till three P.M.  I can say but little, as it was mainly confined to our center and left.  During this time the Rebel forces had fallen back to the position occupied by Grant’s advance Sabbath morning.  The loyal troops had regained all the ground lost, and whatever of artillery and stores the Rebels had been unable to convey to the rear, and were now pressing us at every point.

Just before the retreat, occurred one of the most remarkable incidents of the battle; few more wonderful are on record.  General Hindman, than whom no more fearless, dashing, or brave man is found in the Rebel service, was leading his men in a fearful struggle for the possession of a favorable position, when a shell from the Federal batteries, striking his horse in the breast and passing into his body, exploded.  The horse was blown to fragments, and the rider, with his saddle, lifted some ten feet in the air.  His staff did not doubt that their general was killed, and some one cried out, “General Hindman is blown to pieces.”  Scarcely was the cry uttered, when Hindman sprang to his feet and shouted, “Shut up there, I am worth two dead men yet.  Get me another horse.”  To the amazement of every one, he was but little bruised.  His heavy and strong cavalry saddle, and probably the bursting of the shell downward, saved him.  In a minute he was on a new horse and rallying his men for another dash.  A man of less flexible and steel-like frame would probably have been so jarred and stunned by the shock as to be unable to rise; he, though covered with blood and dust, kept his saddle during the remainder of the day, and performed prodigies of valor.  But no heroism of officers or men could avail to stay the advance of the Federal troops.

At three o’clock P.M. the Confederates decided on a retreat to Corinth; and General Breckenridge, strengthened by three regiments of cavalry,—­Forrest’s, Adams’, and the Texas Rangers, raising his effective force to 12,000 men,—­received orders to protect the rear.  By four P.M. the Confederates were in full retreat.  The main body of the army passed silently and swiftly along the road toward Corinth, our division bringing up the rear, determined to make a desperate stand if pursued.  At this time the Union forces might have closed in upon our retreating columns and cut off Breckenridge’s division, and perhaps captured it.  A Federal battery threw some shells, as a feeler, across the road on which we were retreating, between our division and the main body, but no reply was made to them, as this would have betrayed our position.  We passed on with little opposition or loss, and by five o’clock had reached a point one and a half miles nearer Corinth than the point of attack Sabbath morning.