406 MAJOK JOHN F. LACEY 



the enemy on our works was one of the bravest perform- 

 ances of the war, but it was bravery without discretion. 

 On they came in splendid array, with flags flying, and 

 charged over our lines and the Thirty-third Iowa was 

 compelled to fall back. The Union troops made a firm 

 stand at the next ridge, using the top of a sharp ridge as 

 a natural embankment. Fort Curtis thundered over the 

 heads of our men, and the gunboat Tyler sent heavy 

 shells among the Rebel ranks and all at once the enemy 

 disappeared as if they had been swallowed up by an 

 earthquake. 



I had left my horse with an orderly just below the fort, 

 under the shelter of the hill. I remounted and rode to 

 Colonel Rice and reported what I had seen and he or- 

 dered me to go to General Prentiss and say to him that 

 we could spare some reinforcements from the right of 

 the line. 



I went to General Prentiss as quickly as I could and 

 as I met him I saw what had become of the charging 

 enemy. They had concealed themselves in the deep 

 ravines from our fire and there surrendered to our 

 men. 



A steamboat from Grant's army near Vicksburg land- 

 ed during the battle and these prisoners were at once 

 loaded under guard and were soon steaming away up the 

 river, and the recent splendid line of fighting men spread 

 over the boat a dusty mass of brown, with nothing of the 

 heroic in their appearance. 



Vicksburg surrendered the same day and the closing 

 of Gettysburg occurred on the 3d, so the glory of the 

 battle at Helena was overshadowed by the greatness of 

 contemporaneous events. July 4th, 1863, was really the 

 turning point in the great contest. 



The most ghastly scene of the war, for me, was the 

 mass of Rebel dead along the center where they broke 



