Soon the skirmishing began, and was quickly followed by firing from the Confederate artillery, which continued during the afternoon, but did not prevent the Union column from moving slowly and steadily onward until when night fell, it was within a few hundred yards of the Confederate works. The losses of the day were not very heavy, those of the Tennessee regiments being perhaps a score killed and twice that number wounded. The men lay during the night with their cartridge boxes belted around them, greatly anxious of mind because of the nearness to each other of the hostile lines, and were compelled to feed upon such rations as were possible without kindling fires. The bayonet charge which they expected to make early the next morning was not ordered, for Gen. Sherman determined to flank General Johnson’s army and compel its surrender or retreat. To aid in that movement, Schofield’s divisions were quietly withdrawn--a few troops, horse and foot, taking their place--and were marched to the rear, from thence to pass around the Union lines to the neighborhood of Resaca. Gen. McPherson had preceded Schofield and taken position, and on the 13th the Second division of the latter’s corps, commanded by Gen. H. M. Judah, and its Third division commanded by Gen. Jacob D. Cox, were formed into two lines of battle. The Confederate works were a few hundred yards distant, with a strip of woods intervening. For two hours there was skirmishing between the hostile forces. The Confederates, after being driven back, made a more stubborn resistance. Then at the word, “Forward!” the main line of the Union troops advanced with fixed bayonets. Soon they reached the crest of a ridge, in full view of their entrenched enemy and within range of his rifles. Twenty or more pieces of artillery opened fire upon them with grape and canister shot. The minnie balls they encountered fell thickly like hail-stones in a storm. Down the hillside to the assault they went at a double quick step. Their cheers, as they went, rose clear and strong above the din of the battle. At almost every step one man in every ten of them dropped from the ranks, which still pressed forward and at the base of the hill entered an open field. There a creek, parallel with both army lines, stopped their way. The trees upon its banks had been cut down, and presented a tangled mass which forbid their progress. To attempt a passage through it under their adversary’s heavy fire, would have been to incur a needless sacrifice of human life. Therefore they were ordered to fall back, and leaving many of their number up to their necks in the water of the creek, until night fell to their release, the survivors retreated across the ridge and re-formed.