I found this discusssion on another board...

The concentration of artillery that was placed in the trees along the western edge of the Duncan field is known in history by the title "Ruggles' line of guns". This concentration originated about 3 pm when General Beauregard was informed of the death of General A S Johnston thereby making Beauregard the army commander. He immediately moved to push the stalled rebel attack (He thought) by assigning General Bragg the command in the eastern sector of the battlefield and General Ruggles to command in the center of the battlefield, the Duncan field sector. Ruggles issued orders to gather the artillery into a group which I believe came to contain 55 guns. Major Francis Shoup also claims a portion of the credit for this grouping which came about because Shoup and Ruggles were unaware of the other being present. Remember that there were actually two groups of guns, the northern group and the southern group. The northern group contained the batteries located by aides of General Ruggles and brought to the field. Most of these guns had been near the Woolf field and the fighting below the Jones field. This group is the group formed by Ruggles. The southern group was commanded by Major Shoup and contained a group of batteries who ALL had been under Shoup"s supervision and ALL had been resting in the area below the Review field following the fighting at the Crossroads and the Main Corinth Road above the Review field. This means that the guns of these two groups came from differant areas of the battlefield and explains much of the mystery of the formation of this line of guns. I believe that Shoup was not aware of the presence of the northern group of guns (as were others) and Ruggles' orders to gather the guns. Each claimed credit for their actions innocent of the other's claim. Major Shoup was a creditable officer of his own merit with a distingushed career . I believe that both officers acted on their own initiative with no desire to injure the other.

The artillery concentration of 55 guns was, up to that time, the largest concentration of artillery ever on the north american continent and was thereby a historical event. This did not last long as it was quickly surpassed by, sooner more than later, artillery concentrations. It lost its historical importance by these following gun concentrations and was quickly overlooked in civil war history.

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