Etowah Bridge, Thursday, Oct. 6. Reveille sounded at 4 A. M. but nothing unusual transpired. Couriers from Allatoona report the enemy whipped and retreating. Pioneer corps came up early to work, but the rain fell in such torrents that they left their tools and went to camp.
This afternoon Captain Zickerick returned from Allatoona, bringing us authentic reports of the yesterday’s battle. The enemy was about 5,000 strong, being French’s Division of Lee’s Corps. Our force, all told, 1,500. So confident of success were they that a flag of truce was sent in in the morning demanding our surrender in five minutes to prevent the unnecessary spilling of blood. But the gritty little general, who was bored by rebel bullets at Mission Ridge last winter, couldn’t see it. He replied that he was prepared to commence “the unnecessary spilling of blood” at once. And the ball opened. Three distinct times did they charge the works where the 12th Wisconsin Battery was stationed, but in vain. Every time they were forced back with terrible loss. One time they forced the 93rd Illinois from a small work, but the 12th Battery turned their guns on them, double shotted with canister, obliging them to abandon it at a terrible loss. They opened on us with eight pieces of artillery, doing no damage, when our guns played on them so close that the cannoneers had to be kept at their post with fixed bayonets. They made desperate efforts to take the large amount of commissary stores kept there. Many of them pinched with hunger, brought the boxes of hard-tack to fill their haversacks while under a murderous fire. They were accompanied by 300 empty wagons to haul off the hard-tack, but the tack they got was not very welcome, and a little before sundown the whole company broke, and retreated toward Dallas, a defeated army, leaving their dead and wounded in our hands, about 2,000. But many of our own brave men lost their lives. The 93rd Illinois alone lost 80. Three companies of the 18th Wisconsin, stationed in a block house, were surrounded early in the morning, but held their own in spite of artillery and musketry until 5 P. M., when the besiegers, failing every other way, built a fire all around it, telling them to come out or suffocate by smoke. All these brave men fell prisoners, but not until sixty men lay dead around to attest to the valor of the eighty-four within. General Corse was wounded in the face, and all of his staff killed or wounded. Colonel Tourtellotte of 4th Minnesota and many others. The 12th Battery won great laurels, losing more men than ever before. Lieutenant Amsden wounded, appeared to be fatal. Four killed and two others wounded fatally. Fifteen wounded slightly. All their horses nearly gone. They were the best in the Corps too. Our total loss was 722 men. Had the reinforcements come up at noon, which they would, had not the train run off the track, a large portion of them would have been captured. The main charging column of the rebels was the famous Missouri Brigade that fought them before at Iuka, Corinth, Champion Hills, and occupied Fort Hill during the siege of Vicksburg. Many of them came into our lines, tired at last of war. I don’t think there has been more desperate fighting done this year than yesterday at Allatoona.
