After the battle, my regiment was assigned to Brigadier-General S. A. M. Wood's brigade of Hardee's division. I was very soon the senior colonel in the brigade, except Colonel W. B. Wood, of the Sixteenth Alabama, who was for nearly a year absent from the army. Then, in the absence of the brigadier-general, I was entitled to the command. I was frequently thrown in command of the brigade before the commencement of the Kentucky campaign.
At Chattanooga, before the campaign commenced, the army was reorganized. General Hardee was placed in command of a corps and Major-General Buckner placed in command of our division. As soon as the army entered Kentucky, General Buckner left the division for a time, to encourage the enlistment of Kentucky troops, and General Wood, being the senior brigadier, was placed in command of the division, which left me in command of the brigade. I had engaged in some active skirmishing about Corinth, but the battle of Perryville was the first regular engagement I was ever in. Just before the commencement of the battle, General Buckner resumed the command of the division and General Wood of the brigade, which sent me back to my regiment. But before we got near the enemy General Wood was slightly wounded by a shell, and I resumed the command of the brigade. So, I commanded a brigade in the first battle I was ever engaged in. But I was soon painfully wounded in my left arm, by which I was disabled about eight weeks. At the battle of Murfreesboro,