Rutledge's Battery, a Confederate artillery unit, fired from this position during the Battle of Mill Springs. Captain Arthur M. Rutledge, a West Point graduate, organized the Tennessee Light Artillery Battery—110 men, two howitzers, and four six-pounders—in May 1861. That September, the battery joined General Felix Zollicoffer's army at Cumberland Ford, and they were with the army at Beech Grove when the Confederates marched into battle on January 19, 1862. Rutledge ordered two six-pounders to a position on the Mill Springs road, leaving four guns in reserve. The battery supported the 15th Mississippi Infantry as it charged the Union line at the fence from the ravine, but poor conditions rendered the shots all but useless. The day was wet and cold, smoke from discharged weapons hung near the ground and restricted visibility, and the terrain made it impossible to see the enemy. Rutledge's Battery retreated with the rest of the Confederate army to Beech Grove, where his men answered the Union artillery bombardment while desperately trying to sink the steamboat Noble Ellis as it carried Confederate soldiers across the Cumberland River to Mill Springs. When the Confederates abandoned Beech Grove, they left Rutledge's guns with the rest of the artillery, and the Federals took the captured guns to Somerset. Confederate General John Hunt Morgan later burned the guns during his July 1862 raid into Kentucky.