Letters From Veterans

Confederate Veteran
Volume 2, Page 340
November 1894

J. A. Wheeler, Salado, Tex.:
"Sometime between two and three o'clock on April 6, 1862, at the battle of Shiloh, Gen. Pat Oleburne's Brigade was ordered to move forward from its position in a ravine to the top of a ridge in front and hold the position at all hazards for twenty minutes, which we did in grand style under one of the most severe showers of lead imaginable, until Terry's Texas Rangers gained the enemy's rear. At a given signal a brigade from the right and left of Cleburne's Brigade charged in echelon to the right and left, coming together in front of Cleburne, who ceased firing. The charge from the front made Gen. Prentiss hunt for more congenial ground, but in his wild search for less. dangerous quarters he found Terry's Texas Rangers in his rear. He soon found that he had fallen into the Confederate trap, and surrendered in good style and quick time his entire division of some 10,000 or 15,000 men. Gen. Prentiss was sent to the rear by Capt. R. Y. King, of the Eighth Texas Cavalry, Terry's Rangers, under charge of Serg. G. B. Beaumont, who is now Dr. Beaumont, of Coleman, Tex., and Capt. King is now the Hon. R. Y. King, of Belton, Tex. They invite correspondence on the subject. Many of our best men were killed and wounded in this engagement, for Prentiss's men fought well at short range, about three hundred yards. They were using the buck and ball ammunition, and shot low, and hurt."