Major Robertson sat his horse at a point where he had previously been in daylight, from which he knew he could get the first glimpse of the Yankee camp opposite, when it should be light enough. The other officers all on their horses in their proper positions in each battery, all drivers mounted and cannoneers at post, with guns loaded and primers stuck in the gun vents, lanjords in the hands of No. 4 cannoneer. From across the river the Yankee bugle rang out with the "reveille", call and instantly Major Robertson's voice "Battalion! Ready! Fire!" Eight guns thundered almost as one and continued to fire each about four shots to the minute for possibly six or eight minutes, when a Federal battery replied. Then came Robertson's command, "Limber to the rear! To the right, march! Gallop!" And away we went down the river under the cover of the sheltering woods. A piece of shell took off the arm of one of Lumsden's men, near the shoulder, as we moved away. His name was Ray, a private from somewhere in Georgia. He was attended and brought to camp in the ambulance and sent back to hospital, whether he recovered or not, we are not sure.
It developed that this little expedition was arranged the day before by Bragg's orders, as a sort of reconnaissance, to find out whether or not the Yankees had any artillery at this point, and the opposite side of the river. His order to Robertson was to leave at once if answered by artillery and not to engage in an artillery duel. All along the route of return to camp, the different commands in the trenches wanted to know what all that racket meant up the river. "We never heard guns fire so fast in our lives before." "We thought the ball must be about to open again, etc." By mid-day we were back in our camp again.
The battery remained in this camp till Tuesday, Nov. 24th, the morning of the battle of Missionary Ridge, when camp was broken and wagons sent to rear with all camp equipage. The fighting part was ordered to top of ridge near Gen. Bragg's headquarters. There we remained with the battle field stretched out before us, simply ready to move, and viewing the great disaster to the confederate army to our left, we could take no part, could get to no point where needed. Below us, in our immediate front and to our right, our men held their own manfully. Orderlies and aids galloped to headquarters, orderlies and aid galloping away again. It filtered down to us that on our extreme left, the Yankees had gained the ridge and so taking our army on its left flank. In the afternoon came orders to us, to move to the rear. We soon found ourselves traveling rearward with lots of wounded infantry and so continued till we crossed Chickamauga creek and took a position to protect the crossing if necessary. Here we remained until next morning Nov. 25th till 9:00 a.m., the boys finding in a deserted smoke house a barrel about half full of beef tallow. It was broken up and distributed around and came in afterwards to melt up for biscuit shortening. It tasted very well, when biscuits were eaten hot, but to be eaten cold it is not to be recommended.