any better than to go,” but remarked that old soldiers could not be got to go up there.  General Blair then said, “Tom, if we succeed, this will be a grand thing; you will have the glory of leading the assault.”  He then went on to say that General Morgan’s division would support us, and they were heroes of many battles, and pointed to the Fifty-eighth Ohio, then forming in the rear of the Thirteenth Illinois on my right, and said:  “See these men?  They are a part of Morgan’s division, and are heroes of many battles.”  I laughingly said that they might be heroes, but the regiment did not number as many as one of my companies.  He again assured me we would be supported by Morgan’s division, and all I had to do was to keep right on and “keep going till you get into Vicksburg.”  I took my position in advance of my regiment and awaited the signal.  When we heard it, we raised a shout, and started at a double-quick, the Thirteenth Illinois on my right.  I saw no troops on my left.  When we emerged from the woods, the enemy opened upon us; crossing the bayou under fire, and many of the men sinking in the mud and water, our line was very much disordered, but we pretty well restored it before reaching the abatis.  Here we were greatly disordered, but somewhat restored the line on reaching the plateau or corn-field.  The Twenty-ninth Missouri came on, gallantly supporting us.  The Thirteenth Illinois came out upon the corn-field, and the Fifty-eighth Ohio followed close upon it.  There was firing to my left, and as I afterward learned was from the Fourth Iowa of Thayer’s brigade (and I believe of Steele’s division).  I was struck and fell, and my regiment went back in great disorder.  The fire was terrific.  I saw beyond the Thirteenth Illinois, to my right, a disordered line, and learned afterward it was the Sixteenth Ohio.  When I was taken from the field by the enemy and taken into Vicksburg, I found among the wounded and prisoners men and officers of the Sixteenth and Fifty-eighth Ohio, and of the Twenty-ninth and Thirty-first Missouri, and Thirteenth Illinois.  After I was exchanged and joined my command, General Blair laughingly remarked to me that I had literally obeyed his order and gone “straight on to Vicksburg.”  He lamented the cutting to pieces of our force on that day.  We talked the whole matter over at his headquarters during the siege of Vicksburg.  He said that if the charge had been made along our whole line with the same vigor of attack made by his brigade, and if we had been supported as Morgan promised to do, we might have succeeded.  I dissented from the opinion that we could even then have succeeded.  I asked him what excuse Morgan gave for failing to support us, and he said that Colonel or General De Courcey was in some manner to blame for that, but he said Morgan was mistaken as to the nature of the ground and generally as to the feasibility of the whole thing, and was responsible for the failure to afford us the support he had promised; that he and General Sherman and all of them were misled by the statements and opinions of Morgan as to the situation in our front, and Morgan was, on his part, deceived by the reports of his scouts about other matters as well as the matter of the water in the bayou.