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.  The division came out of the cedars with unbroken ranks, thinned by only its killed and wounded—­but few missing.  When we came into the open ground, McCook directed Roberts’s brigade—­now commanded by Colonel Luther P. Bradley—­to proceed a short distance to the rear on the Nashville pike, to repel the enemy’s threatening attempt at our communications.  Willingly and cheerfully the brigade again entered the fight under these new conditions, and although it was supplied with but three or four cartridges to the man now, it charged gallantly and recaptured two pieces of artillery which the Union troops had had to abandon at that point.

Shortly after we debouched from the cedars I was directed by Rosecrans to send some aid to the right of General Palmer’s division; and two of Schaefer’s regiments, having obtained ammunition, were pushed up on Palmer’s right, accompanied by four of Hescock’s guns; but the advance of the enemy here had already been checked by Palmer, and only a desultory contest ensued.  Rosecrans, whom I now met in the open ground west of the railroad, behind Palmer, directed that my command should relieve Wood’s division, which was required to fall back and take up the new line that had been marked out while I was holding on in the cedars.  His usually florid face had lost its ruddy color, and his anxious eyes told that the disasters of the morning were testing his powers to the very verge of endurance, but he seemed fully to comprehend what had befallen us.  His firmly set lips and, the calmness with which his instructions were delivered inspired confidence in all around him; and expressing approbation of what my division had done, while deliberately directing it to a new point, he renewed in us all the hope of final victory, though it must be admitted that at this phase of the battle the chances lay largely with the enemy.

Withdrawing the two regiments and Hescock’s battery, that I had posted on the right of Palmer, I moved as directed by Rosecrans into the position to the east of the railroad, and formed immediately to the right of Wood, who was now being attacked all along his front, but more particularly where his right rested near the railroad.  Under a storm of shot and shell that came in torrents my troops took up the new ground, advancing through a clump of open timber