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Jasper County named William Denson Evans watched as Terral was rag-dolled by bullets and fell from his horse.
    Evans reached Terral and lifted him up. “Knock them off of their guns, boys, for I cain’t do any more,” Terral said.
    Evans helped carry Terral to the rear. “He was shot all to peaces,” Evans wrote. “Boath leges were broke boath arms was broke and 4 or five bullits were shot in his boddy.”
    Evans himself lost his left eye and was wounded in the arm, but “we done what he told us to do and spiked the big guns.”
    The Yankees would fight, fall back, regroup, and reinforce. The 7th Mississippi Battalion advanced only a few yards at a time. “We would fight them in one position until flanked then take another, only to repeat the operation,” recorded Hugh Carlisle of the 81st Ohio. After hours of continuous fighting, all that lay between the rebels and Corinth was a last semicircle of earthen batteries. But by then the Yankees were “trebled by reinforcements,” observed the rebel commanders, and not only did they have fresh men, they had food and water. The rebels, though they were within six hundred yards of the town, had gone several hours without anything to eat or drink and were utterly played out.
    As sundown came, their firing diminished, then ceased altogether. Van Dorn watched the light fade with regret: “One hour more of daylight and victory would have soothed our grief for the loss of the gallant dead who sleep on that lost but not dishonored field,” heinsisted. But he also had to admit that the ten-mile march, lack of water, difficulty of getting into the battle through forests of undergrowth, and the resistance of the enemy had been more than his men could overcome in a single day.
    The men of the 7th Battalion had fought for eight hours in ninety-to one-hundred-degree heat, with scarcely a drop of liquid. The hands of their brigade commander, General Martin E. Green, were black with gunpowder. Soldiers sank down on one knee, supporting themselves on their rifle butts. As the sun set, a chill set in, and men who had been soaked in their own sweat all day were suddenly cold.
    For the first time, Newton and the other orderlies could ferry the wounded to the field hospital without being shelled. The orderlies stanched blood and applied emergency bandages from out of knapsacks, and helped load men into the ambulance, a covered, horse-drawn, four-wheeled wagon with a hinged rear gate that could be lowered for the most severely injured.
    Newton sorted through the bodies, listening for moans and looking for writhing movement. The swampy battlefield attracted the attention of hogs, scavenging for food. Newton had heard numerous reports of hogs eating the guts out of men. He knew what was happening when a hog lifted its head from a body and revealed a crimson muzzle. If the man’s eyes were filled with blood, then peace would come soon. Once a hog made a meal out of a man, there was little Newton or anyone else could do to keep him alive.
    The survivors were lifted onto the rickety wagon and carried back to the field hospital. Newton assisted Dr. John M. Baylis, another wealthy officer from back home who was the battalion surgeon, as he worked frantically, examining and dressing wounds, digging out Minié balls with forceps, stitching up flesh with silk thread, and amputating countless limbs. There was no such thing as antiseptic, and it never occurred to anyone to wash his hands or scrub under his nails. Surgeons ran their dirty index fingers and bloody implements in and out of wounds, which almost invariably suppurated.
    The key to a successful amputation hinged on doing it quicklyto prevent shock and excessive bleeding. But inexperienced battle surgeons like Baylis, not knowing this, often prolonged the process and sometimes stopped sawing to gaze at the twitching nerves and muscles. The soldiers were remarkable in their restraint. To scream was considered cowardly and dishonorable. Those