But the enemy, though flanked and overpowered, did not appear disposed to leave us in quiet possession of his works and guns. He hastily re-formed his lines and prepared to assault in turn. The Unionists had hardly occupied the captured position, or been able to remove the captured guns, before the enemy returned to the attack. He pressed forward with great vigor, and gained ground very rapidly at first, but found in his way the same obstacle of the open field, while he did not have the advantage of superior numbers. As soon as it came to close work, his rapidly advancing lines were halted very suddenly by the terrible fire which was now poured in upon him. He continued, however, to fire rapidly, and with some execution upon our line, but would have been ultimately repulsed without other assistance, had not a very serious obstacle presented itself.

Men in line of battle very soon expend their ammunition. In a skirmishing engagement, like that they were then having, they dispose of it even more rapidly. We were nearly out of ammunition, and the commanding officer had serious fears he would have to relinquish possession of the works if his cartridge-boxes were not soon replenished. General Hooker, anticipating this, had sent for ammunition at an early hour after getting possession of the road across the spur of the mountain; but the difficulties of the uncertain pontoon bridges had prevented his getting any. He again asked for it, and this time it came, and at the opportune moment. The men were beginning to fall out of line occasionally, entirely out of ammunition; for when a man puts his hand behind him, and into his cartridge-box, to find no cartridges there, a good deal of his confidence, if not courage, oozes out at the ends of his fingers, with which he thought to grasp the death-dealing messenger. The line was beginning to be thinned by men who had fired their sixty rounds, when the ammunition which General Thomas had sent sprang across Chattanooga Creek. The enemy had begun to perceive his advantage and to push forward, when this ammunition marched up the hill. The enemy had even ventured upon a shout of assured victory, when this ammunition deployed into line

and double-quicked across the open field, and sprang into the vacated places. There were one hundred and twenty thousand rounds of it, strapped upon the backs of as good men as had stayed with Thomas at Chickamauga, and in ten minutes after it reached the works it had repulsed the enemy! The re-enforcements which so opportunely arrived consisted of a brigade of the Fourteenth Corps, and upon it devolved the remainder of the labor of the day. It was dark by the time the enemy were repulsed, and those who stayed in Chattanooga describe this fight as the most magnificent view of the grand panorama of war which we have just witnessed. It was just beginning to be dark enough to see the flash of the muskets, and still light enough to distinguish the general outline of the contending masses. The mountain was lit up by the fires of the men in the second line, and the flash of musketry and artillery. An unearthly noise rose from the mountain, as if the old monster were groaning with the punishment the pigmy combatants inflicted upon him as well as upon each other. And during it all, the great guns on the summit continued, as in rage, to bellow defiance at the smaller guns of Moccasin Point, which, with lighter tone, and more rapidly, as if mocking the imbecility of their giant enemy, continued to fire till the day roared itself into darkness.

The enemy fell back after his repulse to a point covering the Summertown ascent to the summit of the mountain, and for the remainder of the night confined himself to the defense of that defile and to the evacuation of the mountain.

Subsequently, about midnight, the enemy, to cover his retreat, made an assault upon the Union lines, but, though they did some execution, they were handsomely repulsed.

General Hooker made a great reputation by this attack with the men of the Army of the Cumberland. As his lines would advance after night, the men could see his fires springing up and locating his new line. As each line became developed by these fires, those on the mountain could plainly distinguish the cheers of their comrades below. One of the expressions used by a private who

was watching the fires from Orchard Knob has already grown into the dignity of a camp proverb. On seeing the line of camp-fires advanced to Carlin's house, and beyond the rifle-pits of the enemy, a soldier in General Wood's command sprang up from his reclining position on Orchard Knob, and exclaimed: "Look at old Hooker! Don't he fight for 'keeps ?'"'

The sequel of the fight-the morning's handsome epilogue to the night's drama-is already known. Hooker found the enemy gone, and the assault of Lookout Mountain had not been in vain.

The following is General Grant's modest dispatch with regard to the operations of the second day :

CHATTANOOGA, November 24-6 P. x. Major-General H. W. HALLECK, General-in-Chief, Washington, D. C. The fighting to-day progressed favorably.

General Sherman carried the end of Missionary Ridge, and his right is now at the tunnel, and his left at Chickamauga Creek.

The troops from Lookout Valley carried the point of the mountain, and now hold the eastern slope and point high up.

I cannot yet tell the amount of casualties, but our loss is not heavy. General Hooker reports two thousand prisoners taken, besides which a small number have fallen into our hands from Missionary Ridge.

U. S. GRANT, Major-General.

General Grant says nothing about himself in the struggle, although, notwithstanding his crippled condition, he kept the field under his eye almost constantly, within cannon shot of the enemy.

We add the rebel dispatch concerning the contest :

To General S. COOPER:

We have had a prolonged struggle for sustained considerable loss in one division. maneuvered for position.

MISSION RIDGE, November 24, 1863.

Lookout Mountain to-day, and
Elsewhere the enemy has only

BRAXTON BRAGG, General.

The third day brought a repetition of the varying fortunes and awfully sublime scenes of warfare, unrivaled in the annals of the past.

Near Fort Buckner, the Union Brigade, under a rocky ridge which protected them from bullets, met a shower of stones hurled upon them from above.