“When General Blair entered the second line of rifle-pits, his brigade continued to pursue the enemy up the hill. The Thirteenth Illinois infantry was in advance, and fought with desperation to win its way to the top of the crest. Fifty yards or more above the second line of rifle-pits is a small clump of willows, hardly deserving the name of trees. They stand in a corn-field, and from the banks of the bayou below presented the appearance of a green hillock. To this copse many of the rebels fled when they were driven from the rifle-pits, and they were promptly pursued by General Blair’s men. The Thirteenth met and engaged the rebels hand to hand, and in the encounter bayonets were repeatedly crossed. It gained the place, driving out the enemy; but as soon as our men occupied it, the fire of a field-battery was turned upon them, and the place became too hot to be held. “The road from Mrs. Lake’s plantation to the top of the high ground, and thence to Vicksburg, runs at an angle along the side of the hill, so as to obtain a slope easy of ascent. The lower side of this road was provided with a breastwork, so that a light battery could be taken anywhere along the road and fired over the embankment. From the nearest point of this embankment a battery opened on the Thirteenth Illinois, and was aided by a heavy battery on the hill. Several men were killed by the shell and grape that swept the copse. “The other regiments of the brigade came to the support of the Thirteenth, the Twenty-ninth Missouri, Colonel Cavender, being in the advance. Meantime the rebels formed a large force of infantry to bring against them, and when the Twenty-ninth reached the copse the rebels were already engaging the Union troops. The color-bearer of the Twelfth had been shot down, and some one picked up the standard and planted it in front of the copse. The force of the rebels was too great for our men to stand against them, and they slowly fell back, fighting step by step toward the rifle-pits, and taking their colors with them. “In this charge upon the hill the regiments lost severely. In General Blair’s brigade there were eighteen hundred and twenty-five men engaged in this assault, and of this number six hundred and forty-two were killed, wounded, and captured.” Under a flag of truce the dead were buried and the wounded removed, after which General Sherman gave the order for his troops to reëmbark. The arrival of General McClernand at the scene of action caused a change in the command, as he ranked General Sherman by over one month in the date of his commission; and an order was at once given by the former to withdraw from the Yazoo River, where the vessels were stationed, and return to the Mississippi River. General McClernand, on assuming the command, ordered the title of the army to be changed, and General Sherman announced the fact in the following order: