p.

in his word- he always does when he is arround and
he is always arround said he "General we dont feel
like wasting our breath on that God forsaken place- we
came near starving to death there once and we want to
give it a wide berth in the future" at which the
General smiled a loud smile and beged our pardon
said he did not know that as he would not have
asked for the cheer
But the thing was growing momentarily interesting
skirmishing had began on our right farther up the
mountain which was every moment getting hotter &
hotter- we were now exactly opposite Lookout point
and down the mountain side a half mile from the
summit our Regt was entirely detached from
the rest leaving a break of thirty or forty rods
The General now ordered us to advance our skirmishes
and to move cautiously along to a certain point over
looking + commanding the road and its approaches
& to throw up some remporary breast works and
to "hold this road by God" we found a few sharp
shooters & straglers in our front but reached the
point indicated without dificulty & were soon [parting?]
protected by some temporary works - sharp shooting
continued between the skirmishes but no casualties
-meantime there was work being done up
the mountain the enemy was making a desperate
stand and were contesting every foot of the ground
and Gen Carlin who was laying with his Brigade in
reserve at the foot of the mountain opened on them