Union and Confederate forces clashed violently here on Sunday morning, January 19, 1862, with the Union line behind a split-rail fence at the edge of the woods and the Confederate line in a wooded ravine. As rain fell in torrents, Confederates struggled out of the mud-slicked ravine and launched repeated assaults against the Federals. Fighting at the split-rail fence was desperate and often hand-to-hand. Lieutenant James Binford of the 15th Mississippi Infantry recalled that his line fired through the cracks of the fence with ball and buckshot. The 15th Mississippi fell back, and the 20th Tennessee, armed only with old flintlock muskets, surged forward, though one Tennessee soldier wrote that his weapon fired only once despite repeated efforts to prime it. The Confederate assaults failed, and each time the Federals drove them back. The cost in lives was tremendous, with young, beardless faces among the dead and others lying in calm repose as if dreaming of loved ones at home.