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potholes in their midst. Men frantically doused the fires, and cooks and teamsters panicked and scrambled toward shelter. There was none—the artillery was also firing at the lights in the village. A shell exploded through the doorway of the Tishomingo Hotel, killing a man and wounding two more.
    “The scene soon changed and you may believe was less pleasant,” Starr scribbled,
    as they noticed the fires which cooked our breakfast and directed their aim on them which was done very accurately the shell commenced exploding amongst us one solid ball struck a man close by me and killed him I heard the ball coming through the air rattling in the branches of the trees and knew that it must fall very near us … by this time we had put out the fires which made it much darker than it was before, two men were wounded on the right of our breakfast table; I was almost persuaded to be a Christian Coward and run, but seeing all our contraband Negroes had run away from their duty, and not wishing to be likened unto a contraband I remained, and had part of their work to do in loading our desks, boxes, mess chests, etc. on the wagons.
    The Union’s siege guns began to return fire, the batteries opening up with such concerted force it seemed to cause the ground to shift. Lewis Phillips of the 4th Iowa “actually believed the earth to be dropping from under our feet.”
    Newton had been awakened by the thunder of the artillery duel, and in this unholy noise he and the rest of the 7th Mississippi Battalion fell back under the cover of a hill to cook some rations, along with their general, Martin Green. But just as they dug into their breakfasts, Union guns found them and shellfire rained down, plowing up dirt. It would be another long, hungry, thirsty day.
    As the sky brightened, Van Dorn waited for Hébert’s infantry attack to launch. But only silence came from the battlefield. Eventually,light musket fire began to ripple from Dabney Maury’s side of the line; his skirmishers were engaged. But Hébert’s attack had not begun. He failed to respond to three separate inquiries. Van Dorn was at a loss. Where was he?
    At last, at 7:00 a.m., Hébert appeared, pale, to report that he was sick and could not take the field. His inexplicable behavior was later variously rumored to be the result of drunkenness, or cowardice, but it was irrelevant. In either case, he left the Confederate assault in chaos. “I regretted to observe that my whole plan of attack was by this unfortunate delay disarranged,” Van Dorn reported, in an understatement. Van Dorn speedily revised the order of command: the next senior officer, Martin Green, would take charge of the attack.
    Green was still covering his head and trying to eat under shell-fire when a message arrived informing him Hébert was ill and he was now in command of the entire division. The message left Green “hopelessly bewildered,” another officer observed. Hébert may not have been drunk or cowardly, but he was surely sloppy: he had failed to give his subordinates any information, preparation, direction, or even orders.
    Green was unprepared to assume command of the division. He looked like what he was, a businessman, who at the outbreak of war operated a sawmill in Lewis County, Missouri. “A kind-hearted, unostentatious man,” Lieutenant Colonel Columbus Sykes of the 43rd Mississippi described him. He had a long, bony face, elongated further by a split, gauzy white beard. As he tried to cope with the sudden pressure of organizing five brigades comprised of several thousand men into a massive attack, he radiated uncertainty. Two hours passed as he hesitantly realigned his troops—a feat, given the flaming leaden debris that was raining down on them.
    Newton and the men of the 7th Mississippi Battalion found their places in the line. They would advance across the triangle of ground formed by the two intersecting railroad lines and form the innermost muscle of the sweeping Confederate