Throughout the morning of October 28, as sharpshooting and artillery fire continued, Granger and Doolittle decided to attack a Confederate battery at the edge of the Tennessee River whose fire threatened the critical pontoon bridge. The 14th U.S. Colored Infantry was chosen for the assault. Colonel Thomas Jefferson Morgan wrote that the men were stripped of all extra load and carried only gun, accouterments, and canteen of water, and were told that the battery was to be charged and taken even if only ten men survived to take it. At precisely noon Morgan ordered the attack, and 363 enlisted men and officers rushed forward, crossed the slight works, drove off the artillerymen, spiked the guns, and cut down the prolonges to haul them away. Before the cannon could be moved, Confederate infantry counterattacked, and after hand-to-hand fighting the regiment withdrew, bringing off its killed and wounded. In the intense close combat, Morgan reported that as Captain Rolph was retreating a rebel seized him by the collar and was killed by a stroke from the captain’s sword. Having captured and disabled four Confederate cannon, the regiment fell back to Decatur’s fortifications, where white soldiers cheered them and Captain Romeyn remembered his first sergeant saying, “Captain, we’ve got it at last.”