In more than two years of war, Captain Cuthbert H. Slocomb had faced death and danger before — but now disaster seemed imminent. An overwhelming force of Northern infantry was storming his position &n Missionary Ridge near Chattanooga, Tennessee. He commanded the 5th Company of the Louisiana Washington Artillery Battery, and his guns appeared on the verge of being overrun. Cheering loudly, the Northern troops were making a surprise, unauthorized charge — and the battle-worn Confederates of the Army of Tennessee were retreating in chaos. Slocomb's guns lobbed round after round into the advancing Northerners, but on they came, surging up the ridge and flanking his positions.

Slocomb turned his guns on the blue-clad troops swarming over the ridge, hoping the Confederate infantry would retake their lost ground. Instead, the overwhelmed Southerners continued to fall back. As his guns shot at the enemy ranks, Slocomb's batteries came under deadlier fire. "My fire had :
been speedily opened and its effect was marked," he recalled, "when a shell from one of the batteries in the valley exploded both the limber chests of the Napoleon guns of my right half-battery, shattering the chests and carriages, killing and disabling most of the horses, and so entangling the remainder as to require cutting them out of the harness to save them. This calamity added to the confusion and panic of the infantry. The supports of my left half-battery caught the contagion and the enemy soon gained the summit of the ridge on my left..."
Slocomb and most of his men escaped with their lives, about 60 horses and some of their guns. The Battle of Missionary Ridge was a Confederate disaster which enabled Federal forces to secure the vital rail center of Chattanooga and opened the way for General William T. Sherman's drive toward Atlanta. Despite the defeat and the company's losses, Captain Slocomb praised his gun crews. "My officers," he declared in his official report, "bore themselves with their usual conspicuous gallantry, and the men behaved with the utmost heroism, leaving their posts only at my command and even then with reluctance."

he Washington Artillery of New Orleans was originally organized in 1838 and served as a volunteer artillery unit with U.S. forces in the Mexican War. Composed of men from prominent New Orleans families, it was reorganized for Confederate service in May of 1861. Armed with field artillery captured from the U.S. arsenal in Baton Rouge, the newly formed battalion became one of the Confederacy's standout volunteer artillery units. Four companies of the Washington Artillery were immediately dispatched to the war's eastern theater, where they distinguished themselves and served in the Army of Northern Virginia until General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox. In March of 1862, the 5th Company of the Washington Artillery was organized and joined the Confederate Army of the Mississippi in the war's western theater. A month later, the 5th Company's artillerists proved themselves at the Battle of Shiloh.

"Captain W. Irving Hodgson, commanding the Fifth Company, Washington Artillery, added fresh luster to the fame of this already renowned corps," declared General Patton Anderson after Shiloh. "On several occasions I witnessed the effect which his canister and round shot produced upon the enemy's masses, and once saw his cannoneers stand to their pieces under a deadly fire when there was no support at hand...."
In November of 1862, the 5th Company was transferred to the Confederate Army of Tennessee and remained with "the army of the heartland" for most of the war. After Shiloh, the company was involved in the Corinth Campaign, and was engaged at Monterey and Farmington. During General Braxton Bragg's Kentucky Campaign in the late summer and early fall of 1862, the 5th Company fought at Munfordville and Perryville.
The company was engaged at the Battle of Murfreesboro, in the Siege of Jackson, at the Battle of Chickamauga, and in the fighting around Chattanooga. After failing to turn back the Federal charge at Missionary Ridge, Captain Slocomb and his cannoneers tried to rally the panicked Confederate infantry and lead them in a counterattack, although they were unsuccessful.
 
The 5th Company of the Washington Artillery was also engaged in the Atlanta Campaign, serving in the fighting at Resaca, Dallas and Atlanta. At General John Bell Hood's disastrous Franklin and Nashville Campaign, the 5th Company provided artillery support in some of the war's bloodiest fighting. A Confederate officer at the Battle of Overall's Creek later described the crucial support provided by the Washington Artillery during an enemy cavalry charge: "I raised my sword arm to guard my head from an expected saber stroke, as a few more strides would bring the foes and us together, [then] I realized that the horses alone...were charging us. The riders had been swept off by [the 5th Company's] canister."
After the Army of Tennessee was shattered at Franklin and Nashville, the 5th Company was assigned to the defenses of Mobile, was engaged at Spanish Fort, and ended the war serving in the Department of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana. The Washington Artillery of New Orleans eventually reorganized in peacetime and served with the U.S. Army in the Spanish American War, World War I and World War II.