"Set out according to orders, 6. a. m., towards Parker's store—Crawford, Wadsworth, Robinson; enemy reported close at hand in force, and when Crawford had nearly reached Parker's, Generals Meade and Grant arrived and determined to attack the force on the road near Griffin (Warren's right division). Wadsworth was gotten into line immediately on the left of Griffin with one brigade of Crawford, Robinson in support. We attacked with this force impetuously, carried the enemy's line, but being flanked by a whole division of the enemy were compelled to fall back to our first position, leaving two guns on the road between the lines that had been advanced to take advantage of the first success. The horses were shot and the guns removed between our lines. The attack failed because Wright's (Third) division of the Sixth Corps was unable on account of the woods to get up on our right flank and meet the division (Johnson's Ewell's Corps) that had flanked us. Wright became engaged some time afterward. We lost heavily in this attack, and the thick woods caused much confusion in our lines. The enemy did not pursue us in the least. We had encountered the whole of Ewell's Corps. The enemy that moved on past Parker's along the Plank Road was Hill's corps. General Getty's division of the Sixth Corps was sent to the intersection of the Brock Road to check the column, which it did, and General Hancock was ordered up from Todd's tavern, and also engaged Hill's corps. At this time I sent Wadsworth with his division and Baxter's (Second) Brigade (Second Division) to attack Hill's left flank as he engaged Hancock. It was late when this was done, but the attack produced considerable impression. Wadsworth's men slept on their arms where night overtook them. During the night, I sent instructions to Wadsworth to form in line northeast and southwest, and go straight through, and orders were given to attack next morning at 4.30 with the whole army, Burnside being expected up by that time to take part. With the rest of my force I prepared to attack Ewell in conjunction with a part of the Sixth Corps."
During the day, General Alexander Hays, commanding a brigade in the Second Corps was killed, a contemporary of Grant at West Point, he was one of the bravest of the brave; Generals Getty and Carroll were wounded, but remained on the field. The report of General Robinson, commanding the division, does not add any essentials to the report of General Warren. Unfortunately no report of our Brigade nor of the regiments composing it are found. Comrade Beck of Company C has this to say of his observations during the day:—
"Turned out at three o'clock and started at about light; after some delay found the rebels in force; the advance forces of our Corps drove the enemy from his first line of works; we were in reserve till about 12 m., when we were ordered into line-of-battle on the right of the Plank Road; dead and wounded are in evidence and there is hot work ahead. The Rebs have a strong position across a ravine; our artillery could not be placed in position; volley after volley was fired all day from all along, both left and right; we had to lay low, the balls whistled thick around us; at six o'clock were ordered to charge but were ordered back; it would have been madness, since the enemy had a cross fire on us. We lay in line-of-battle all night; many of our wounded could not be reached, and it was awful to hear their cries; when the stretcher-bearers tried to get them, the Rebs opened a battery on them."
Readers with memories will recall that, some time after Gettysburg, Longstreet was detached from the Army of May 5, '64 Lee and sent to Georgia to help the Confederates whom Rosecrans was pressing hard; sometime before this, early in 1863, two divisions of the Ninth Corps had been withdrawn from the Potomac and dispatched to the Department of the Ohio to aid in the campaign Burnside was then projecting. Both Confederates and Federals had returned to the East; Longstreet, most remote of the rebel array, had been striving to reach the field where his chief was struggling with the Union Army and, by one of the most wonderful coincidences in all history, Burnside and his following, save two divisions, were swinging into position between Warren and Hancock, only a few minutes later than Longstreet when the latter came up to the help of Hill. Grant in his Memoirs says that Meade wished the hour of attack on the 6th to be set at 6 a. m., an hour and a half later than the orders of the night of the 5th. "Deferring to his wishes as far as I was willing, the order was modified and 5 was fixed as the hour to move." So then we come to the 6th of May and a resumption of Warren's report:—
"At precisely five o'clock the fighting began. General Wadsworth I re-enforced with Colonel Kitching, 2400 strong (an independent brigade of the Fourth Division). He fought his way entirely across the Second Corps' front to the south side of the Plank Road, and wheeling round commenced driving them up the Plank Road toward Orange Court House. The accumulating force of the enemy staggered his advance, and the line became confused in the dense woods. In the very van of the fight, General Wadsworth was killed by a bullet through his head, and General Baxter was wounded. On our right, the enemy was found to be intrenched and but little impressions could be made. I then sent another brigade to sustain General Hancock, who had now two of my divisions and one of the Sixth Corps, and was defending himself from both Hill and Longstreet. They charged and took possession of a part of his line but were driven out again. Late in the evening, the enemy turned General Sedgwick's right very unexpectedly, and threw most of his line into confusion. I sent General Crawford at double-quick, and the line was restored to him.... In most respects, the result of the day's fighting was a drawn battle."
The report of General Robinson of the Second Division repeats some of Warren's statements, at the same time mentioning the fact that he accompanied General Baxter with the Second Brigade, which went with Wadsworth of the First Division on the 5th, when all hastened to the relief of Hancock; he names Colonel Lyle, of the Ninetieth Pennsylvania as commanding the First Brigade. He also mentions the death of his Assistant Inspector General, Lieut. Colonel David Allen, Jr., of the Twelfth Massachusetts on the 5th, and mentions the charge of the First Brigade (ours) late on the 5th, when the Ninetieth Pennsylvania suffered so severely. In the afternoon of the 6th, he was ordered to send another brigade to the support of Hancock, and later still one more which he accompanied, ranging them on the right of the Second Corps. There he ordered the building of rifle-pits, while he rode to Hancock's headquarters; the latter telling him that he is ordered to attack, and requesting Robinson to join in the assault, our Division Commander returned to his command and made ready to advance, awaiting orders. Two hours later, heavy firing was heard on his left and he was visited by General D. B. Birney who stated that the enemy had broken through our lines and that Hancock was cut off. Robinson at once faced his second line about and made ready to receive attacks on his left and rear. Before any further change was effected, General Birney was summoned by Hancock, and Robinson learned that, instead of breaking through, the enemy had been repulsed. It seems a little strange that the General does not mention the death of General Wadsworth, his fellow division commander, nor the wounding of Baxter of his own command. The taking off of Wadsworth was a great calamity, representing, as he did, the vast array of citizen soldiery. Far past the age of military duty, one of the wealthiest men in the Empire State, he nevertheless threw in his services and, eventually, his life for the cause he loved.[K]
May 6, '64 Returning to the meager records of our own Regiment, we glean certain facts, as that the Brigade was advanced in the morning to nearly its former position and that it was shortly withdrawn and sent to the extreme left on the plank-road, where breastworks were thrown up under active skirmishing. Also on this day, in the various changes of position, the Fifty-sixth, Fifty-seventh, Fifty-eighth and Fifty-ninth Massachusetts Regiments were met, all of them in the Ninth Army Corps, and all of them having officers largely drawn from the older organizations of the Bay State. Private Horton of "E" says, "We lay all night in the same place, the rebels keeping up the firing. We are relieved at 4 a. m. and go back and get breakfast. Travel around almost all day; go to the left where is heavy firing; throw up some rifle-pits." Beck of "C" in effect coincides with the foregoing, though he closes the day's account with the words, "Some of the hardest fighting on record; we build intrenchments on the side of the road and sleep in them through the night; troops were passing and repassing all of the evening; we are having nice warm weather for our operations." Lieutenant Dusseault of "H" relates the incident of a false alarm, while the men were lying along the road, between that and the breastworks:—"About midnight, while the boys were trying to get a little sleep, a great racket was heard not far away, and some in their alarm thought the whole rebel army was upon us. It proved to be a stampede of our own cattle, and they came bellowing down the space between the flanks and the works, and over the prostrate forms of our men. The choice language of the startled sleepers, when they came to understand the situation, added not a little to the tumult." During the day, in one of the several charges made upon us, "A rebel prisoner, apparently wounded and just able to crawl about, on hearing the shouts of his compatriots so near, and dreading to fall into their hands, much to our amusement, jumped up a well man and ran like a deer towards our rear."
Of the charge made in the afternoon of the 5th, this story is told in the history of the Ninetieth Pennsylvania whose Colonel, Peter Lyle, was in command of the Brigade, having succeeded Colonel Leonard of the Thirteenth Massachusetts:—
"The command was formed in line-of-battle and advanced until it reached the open ground, beyond which the enemy was intrenched. The line was established behind a slight rise of ground with small trees and bushes in front, the right of the Ninetieth being separated from the rest of the Brigade which it was impossible to occupy, being raked by the enemy's artillery. We lay in this position for some time when General Griffin,[L] in command of the First Division, rode up and commanded a charge. Colonel Lyle promptly led his regiment forward and, as soon as it had cleared the shrubbery in front, and emerged upon the open field rebel batteries opened upon it with grape and canister. The order was given to double-quick and with a shout it advanced within close range of the rebel lines. When Colonel Lyle discovered that he was unsupported, he gave the orders to about-face and what was left rallied around the colors and, under a fierce fire of infantry and artillery, returned to its original position.... Out of two hundred and fifty-one men, one hundred and twenty-four were killed, wounded or captured. From some misunderstanding or not having received the same peremptory orders from General Griffin that he gave the Ninetieth the rest of the brigade did not advance any distance, leaving the Regiment entirely alone in the charge.