I went back to see him at his headquarters, not far from the Griscom House, where we found him sleeping on some straw in the angle of a worm-fence.  I waked him up and communicated the intelligence, and our consequent impressions.  He talked the matter over with us for some little time, but in view of the offensive-defensive part he was to play in the coming battle, did not seem to think that there was a necessity for any further dispositions than had already been taken.  He said that he thought Johnson’s division would be able to take care of the right, and seemed confident that the early assault which was to be made from Rosecrans’s left would anticipate and check the designs which we presaged.  We two then returned to my little camp-fire behind the log, and as we continued talking of what might be expected from the indications on the right, and Sill becoming more anxious, I directed two regiments from the reserve to report to him, that they might be placed within very short supporting distance of his line.  He then rejoined his brigade, better satisfied, but still adhering to the belief he had expressed when first making his report.

Long before dawn my division breakfasted, and was assembled under arms, the infantry in line, the cannoneers at their pieces, but while we were thus preparing, all the recent signs of activity in the enemy’s camp were hushed, a death-like stillness prevailing in the cedars to our front.  Shortly after daylight General Hardee opened the engagement, just as Sill had predicted, by a fierce attack on Johnson’s division, the extreme right of the Union line.  Immediate success attending this assault, Hardee extended the attack gradually along in front of Davis, hip movement taking the form of a wheel to the right, the pivot being nearly opposite the left of my division.  Johnson’s division soon gave way, and two of Davis’s brigades were forced to fall back with it, though stubbornly resisting the determined and sweeping onset.

In the meantime the enemy had also attacked me, advancing across an old cotton-field in Sill’s front in heavy masses, which were furiously opened upon by Bush’s battery from Sill’s line, and by Hescock’s and Houghtaling’s batteries, which had an oblique fire on the field from a commanding position in rear of my centre.  The effect of this fire on the advancing column was terrible, but it continued on till it reached the edge of the timber where Sill’s right lay, when my infantry opened at a range of not over fifty yards.  For a short time the Confederates withstood the fire, but then wavered, broke, and fell back toward their original line.  As they retired, Sill’s brigade followed in a spirited charge, driving them back across the open ground and behind their intrenchments.  In this charge the gallant Sill was killed; a rifle ball passing through his upper lip and penetrating the brain.  Although this was a heavy loss, yet the enemy’s discomfiture was such as to give us an hour’s time, and as Colonel Greusel, Thirty-sixth Illinois, succeeded to Sill’s command, I directed him, as he took charge, to recall the brigade to its original position, for the turning-column on my extreme right was now assuming the most menacing attitude, and it was urgently necessary to prepare for it.