When Crittenden took position, his skirmishers were advanced across the open field to the edge of the timber in front. This dense growth, called in the reports "chapparal" and "jungle," covered both slopes of a hollow, which was threaded by a rivulet with muddy borders, and was the scene of many a bloody repulse the day before, in the repeated assaults upon Prentiss. The skirmishers soon became engaged, and a battery concealed in woods on rising ground beyond, played upon the troops in line. The skirmishers retired to the line, but were sent back to their original position, while Bartlett's battery silenced the hostile battery, and, by accurate fire, compelled it several times to shift its position. A line of battle appearing in the timber preparing to charge, the skirmishers were called back, Bartlett swept the bushes with canister and shrapnell, Boyle's brigade charged into the brush, encountered the fire of the Confederate line at close quarters, replied, charged, and drove the enemy through the timber to an open field beyond. The enemy rapidly crossed the field and took position in woods on its farther side. A line of cavalry appearing at one end of the field, which was also commanded by the enemy's battery, Boyle withdrew his regiments to their original position. Bartlett's battery, aided by Mendenhall's, was in constant activity. The infantry, with intervening pauses of cessation, met and made charges into the chapparal. Mendenhall's battery, in the course of the day, expended five hundred and twenty-six rounds of ammunition, or about eighty-eight to the gun. Bartlett, by noon, had fired his entire supply, six hundred rounds, and took his battery to the landing to replenish. When he returned, the fighting had ceased. After an hour of quiet, a furious attack was made on Smith's brigade. The contest that ensued is described in Colonel Smith's report: "The enemy soon yielded, when a running fight commenced, which extended about a mile to our front, where we captured a battery and shot the horses and many of the cannoneers. Owing to the obstructed nature of the ground, the enthusiastic courage of the majority of our men, the laggard discharge of their duty by many, and the disgraceful cowardice of some, our line had been transformed into a column of attack, representing the various grades of courage, from reckless daring to ignominious fear. At the head of this column stood a few heroic men, not adequately supported, when the enemy returned to the attack with three fresh regiments in good order. We were driven back by these nearly to the first position occupied by our line, when we again rallied and moved forward toward the battery. Reaching a ravine to the right, and about six hundred paces from the battery, we halted and awaited the assistance of Mendenhall's battery, which was brought into action on a knoll within half a mile of the enemy's battery, which it immediately silenced. We