Colonel Wade led the right column, General Burbridge the left, and General Brisbin the centre. Wade got off first, and sailed into the rebels in gallant style. Burbridge piled his overcoat on the ground, drew his sword, and led his column forward like lions. Most of the officers and all the men were on foot. Wade’s horse was soon shot, after which he led his men on foot, and they were the first to strike the Confederate line, who fired time after time, but Wade’s column advanced rapidly for a hand-to-hand fight with the rebels. They went through the Confederate lines like an iron wedge, when the enemy broke, turned and ran. Burbridge hit with all his might on the left, and Brisbin’s men in the centre also covered themselves with glory. Men never did better in this world. When their guns were empty, they clubbed their foes with the butt ends, many of the latter jumping fully fifteen feet down the opposite side of the hill to get out of the way of our infuriated men! The night was now coming on! Sauve qui peut! The rebels fled in the darkness, and ultimately took the North Carolina road, fleeing over the mountains. Thus ended the grand struggle for the salt works at Marion, Tennessee. Our troops now advanced, nor stopped till their destruction was complete. We all know that it must go very hard, indeed, with any people when they have got no salt. Poor things! What could they do without salt? So these coveted salt works at Marion were destroyed by the Union army, but not till the army had been first rescued from destruction by the colored troops who were attached to the service there. I don’t know how it happened, but somehow or other the Northern generals had a great deal of confidence in colored men, whom they often put aside, and held in reserve in case of the direst necessity in the end, and when the worst might come to the worst. It was then that our faithful fellows were called forwards to save the armies, and they saved them, too, standing like walls of adamant between the white Unionists and their terrible foes. Our brave boys often did as well elsewhere as they did at Marion. It used to be the grand hue and cry in the beginning of the war that if colored men were enlisted into the armies of the Union, they would not fight like their white brothers! Even we ladies, who surely were never intended to fight in the ranks—we ladies living far away up in the North at Buffalo, used to laugh at the whole thing as a joke, for certainly everybody knew better. But that miserable parrot cry ceased after a while, and was no more heard of.