"Another night scene, though not quite so gloomy as that of New Hope Church, pictured itself the 27th of May at Pickett's Mill. Our enemy thus describes its cause. He says: 'The fighting rose above the grade of skirmishing, especially in the afternoon, when, at half-past 5, the Fourth Corps (Howard's) and a division of the Fourteenth (Palmer) attempted to turn our (Confederate) right, but the movement, after being impeded by the cavalry, was met by two regiments of our right division (Cleburn's) and two brigades of his Second brought up on the first. The Federal formation was so deep that its front did not equal that of our two brigades; consequently those troops were greatly exposed to our musketry--all but the leading troops being on a hillside facing us. They advanced until their first line was within twenty-five or thirty paces of ours and fell back only after at least seven hundred men had fallen dead in their places. When the leading Federal troops paused in their advance, a color bearer came on and planted his colors eight or ten feet in front of his regiment, but was killed in the act. A soldier who sprang forward to hold up or bear off the colors was shot dead as he seized the staff. Two others who followed successively fell like him, but the fourth bore back the noble emblem. Some time after nightfall, we (the Confederates) captured above two hundred prisoners in the hollow before them.' "It was of that sad night that this was written: 'We worked our men all that weary night in fortifying. The Confederate commander was ready at daylight to take the offensive against us there at Pickett's Mill, but he did not do so, because he found our position too strong to warrant the attempt. With a foot bruised by a fragment of a shell, General Howard sat that night among the wounded in the midst of a forest glade, while Major Howard of his staff led regiments and brigades into the new positions chosen for them. General R. W. Johnson, (Palmer's Division Commander) had been wounded and Captain Stinson of Howard's staff had been shot through the lungs, and a large number lay there on a sliding slope by a faint camp fire, with broken limbs or disfigured faces.' Actually but one division, and not a corps, made that unsuccessful assault, and its conduct has received a brave enemy's high praise. The fighting and the night work secured the object of the movement, causing Johnston to swing back his whole army from Sherman's post to a new position."