The Battle of Spring Hill, Tennessee

the railway station, nearly a mile northwest of Spring Hill, where two trains of cars were standing on the track, around by the north, east and south, to the Columbia pike on the southwest. Behind this long line the village streets and the adjacent fields were crammed with nearly everything on wheels belonging to our army--ambulances, artillery carriages and army wagons to the number of about 800 vehicles. The nearest support was Ruger's two brigades, eight miles away, and it was about an hour later before Ruger had started for Spring Hill. Opdycke's brigade was covering the railway station and the Franklin pike on the north, and Lane's brigade the Mount Carmel road on the east. They had a connected line, but it was so long that much of it consisted of skirmishers only. They had in their front detachments of Forrest's cavalry feeling along their line for an opening to get at the trains. Bradley's brigade occupied an advanced, detached position, on the ridge to the southeast that has been mentioned, to cover