Dear Subscribers to the Lewis County, Kentucky Mailing List, This is Posting Number Four from ~Under the Flag of the Nation: Diaries and Letters of a Yankee Volunteer in the Civil War~. The passage quoted today is on page 45 and is the description of the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou, Mississippi. This battle is also called Chickasaw Bluffs. The battle was a defeat for the Union Army, but in time, Vicksburg did fall to the Federals. A sizable number of men from Greenup and Lewis Counties, Kentucky participated in this battle, with many killed and wounded. The text in parentheses is mine. It will take two postings to cover this battle. "On the 20th of December, 1862, our Regiment (the Forty-second Ohio), with the force under General Sherman (which included the Twenty-second Kentucky), set sail from Memphis. The army, consisting of about 15,000 men, with several gunboats, arrived at the mouth of the Yazoo River, just above Vicksburg, on Saturday morning, the 29th (this must be an error). A line of high bluffs here fringe the eastern shores of the Yazoo and the Mississippi. This bluff on the Yazoo is at ashort distance from the river, and the intervening space consists of a low and marshy bottom often overflowed by the swelling of the stream, and at all other times intersected by sluggish bayous. The chain of bluffs frowned with batteries on summit and sides, and with rifle pits near the base. The plan of attack was for General Sherman to assail these works in front, while General Grant, advancing by way of Jackson, was to charge them in the rear. But by the inconceivable idiocy of a subordinate at Holly Springs, a raiding party of Rebels had fallen upon our magazines of supplies there and had destroyed two milions' worth in a few hours. Grant was thus delayed. On the very day of the disembarking of our forces, we pushed across the marshy river bottom to near the edge of the bluffs, driving the enemy into their works. The next morning, the engagement was opened up with an impetuous fire of artillery, and then with an infantry charge upon the first line of Rebel rifle pits. The enterprise was crowned with success, and as we swarmed into the captured works, the Rebels fled to their second line of defense. In the meantime, the enemy had concentrated a heavy force within their ramparts, while but one half of our army designed for the attack was in the field. Sunday and Monday were spent by both armies in preparation for the decisive conflict, while each endeavored to annoy the other by occasional artillery firing. Having thrown several bridges across the bayous, General Sherman ordered a general assault at two o'clock Monday afternoon. At the appointed hour, the storm burst in all its fury. The hill belched forth flame and smoke, with trembling of the earth under the cannons' roar, as though a hundred volcanoes were in violent eruption. We were compelled in the charge to wade the bayous and struggle through the swamps covered with fallen timbers and traversed with abitis (felled trees with the branches pointing toward the invaders). General Blair's horse became hopelessly mired, and he slid from his back and led his brigade on foot." To be Continued! Sincerely, Randal W. Cooper