Franklin, Hancock, and Howard had made unsuccessful attempts upon this position, leaving their wounded and dead lying in heaps and wind rows from the old railroad cut to the suburbs. Now Sturgis, of the Ninth Corps, was steadily advancing. The Washington Artillery, from New Orleans, occupying the most conspicuous and favorable position on the right of the "Mayree House," had exhausted their shot and shell. The infantry in the road and behind the wall, Cobb's and part of Kershaw's, were nearly out of ammunition, and during the last charge had been using that of their dead and wounded. Calls were made on all sides for "more ammunition," both from the artillery and infantry. Orders and details had been sent to the ordnance trains to bring supplies to the front. But the orders had miscarried, or the trains were too far distant, for up to three o'clock no sign of replenishment was in sight. The hearts of the exhausted men began to fail them—the batteries silent, the infantry short of ammunition, while a long line of blue was making rapid strides towards us in front.
But now all hearts were made glad by the sudden rush of Alexander's Battery coming to the relief of the Washington Artillery. Down the [189] Telegraph Road the battery came, their horses rearing and plunging, drivers burying the points of their spurs deep into the flanks of the foaming steeds; riders in front bending low upon the saddle bows to escape the shells that now filled the air, or plowing up the earth beneath the horses hoofs; the men on the caissons clinging with a death-like grip to retain their seats, the great heavy wheels spinning around like mad and bounding high in the air; while the officers riding at the side of this charging column of artillerists, shouted at the top of their voices, giving directions to the leaders. Down this open and exposed stretch of road, up over the plateau, then wheel to the right, they make a rush through the gauntlet that separates them from the fort in which stood the Washington Artillery. Over the dead and dying the horses leap and plunge, dragging the cannon and ammunition chests—they enter the fort at a gallop. Swinging into line, their brass pieces are now belching forth grape and canister into the ranks of the advancing columns. All this takes place in less time than it takes to record it. The bold dash and beautiful piece of evolution so excite the admiration of all who witnessed it, that a yell went up that drowns for a time the heavy baying of the siege guns on Stafford Heights.
About this time Jackson seems to have reached his limit of retreat, and was now forging steadily to the front, regaining every inch of the lost ground of the morning. The Federal Commander-in-Chief, seeing the stubborn resistance he is met with in front of the city, and Jackson's gray lines pressing his left back upon the river, began to feel the hopelessness of his battle, and sent orders to Franklin to attack Jackson with his entire force. Hooker was to reinforce Sumner on the right, the latter to take the stone wall and the heights beyond before night. Sturgis had met the fate of those who had assaulted before him. Now Getty and Griffin were making frantic efforts to reach the wall. Griffin had his men concealed and protected in the wet, marshy bed of the old canal. He now undertook to accomplish that which Howard had attempted in the morning, and failed—the feat of taking the stone walls with empty guns.
In this column of assault was the famous Meager's Irish Brigade, of New York,—all Irishmen, but undoubtedly the finest body of troops in the Federal Army. When the signal for advance was given, from out of [190] their hiding places they sprang—from the canal, the bushes on the river bank, the side streets in the city, one compact row of glittering bayonets came—in long battle lines. General Kershaw, seeing the preparation made for this final and overwhelming assault upon our jaded troops, sent Captain Doby, of his staff, along our lines with orders to hold our position at all hazards, even at the point of the bayonet.
As the rifle balls from the housetops and shells from the batteries along the river banks sang their peculiar death notes overhead and around us, this brave and fearless officer made the entire length of the line, exhorting, entreating, and urging the men to redoubled efforts. How Captain Doby escaped death is little less than miraculous.
The casualties of battle among the officers and the doubling up process of the men behind the wall caused all order of organization to be lost sight of, and each man loaded and fired as he saw best. The men in the road, even the wounded, crowded out from the wall by force of number, loaded the guns for the more fortunate who had places, and in many instances three and four men loaded the guns for one, passing them to those who were firing from the top of the stone fence. Each seemed to fight on his own responsibility, and with the same determined spirit to hold the wall and the heights above. Each felt as if the safety of the army depended upon his exertions alone.
With a firm and elastic step this long, swaying line of Irishmen moved to the assault with as much indifference apparently to their fate as "sheep going to the shambles." Not a shot was fired from this advancing column, while the shells from our batteries cut swath after swath through their ranks, only to be closed again as if by some mechanical means; colors fall, but rise and float again, men bounding forward and eagerly grasping the fallen staff, indifferent of the fate that awaited them. Officers are in front, with drawn swords flashing in the gleam of the fading sunlight, urging on their men to still greater deeds of prowess, and by their individual courage set examples in heroism never before witnessed on this continent. The assault upon Mayree's Hill by the Irish Brigade and their compatriots will go down [191] in history as only equalled by the famous ride of the "Six Hundred at Hohenlinden," and the "Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava." They forge their way forward over the heap of dead and dying that now strew the plain, nearer to the deadly wall than any of the troops before them. It began to look for the moment as if their undaunted courage would succeed, but the courage of the defenders of Mayree's Hill seemed to increase in ardour and determination in proportion to that of the enemy. The smoke and flame of their battle is now less than one hundred paces from the wall, but the odds are against them, and they, too, had to finally yield to the inevitable and leave the field in great disorder.
From both sides hopes and prayers had gone up that this charge would prove the last attempt to break our lines. But Humphries met the shattered columns with a fresh advance. Those who were marching to enter this maelstrom of carnage were entreated and prayed to by all of those who had just returned from the sickening scene not to enter this death trap, and begged them not to throw away their lives in the vain attempt to accomplish the impossible. But Humphries, anxious of glory for himself and men, urged on by the imperative orders from his Commander-in-Chief, soon had his men on the march to the "bloody wall." But as the sun dropped behind the hills in our rear, the scene that presented itself in the fading gloom of that December day was a plain filled with the dead and dying—a living stream of flying fugitives seeking shelter from the storm of shot and shell by plunging over the precipitous banks of the river, or along the streets and protecting walls of the city buildings.
Jackson had pressed all in his front back to the water's edge, while his batteries, with those of Stuart's, were still throwing shells into the huddled, panic-stricken, and now thoroughly vanquished army of the enemy.
That night the Federal Commander-in-Chief sat in his tent alone, and around him the groans of the wounded and the agonizing wails of the dying greet his ear—the gentle wind singing a requiem to his dead. He nursed alone the bitter consciousness of the total defeat of his army, now a scattered mass—a skeleton of its former greatness—while the flower of the Northern chivalry lie sleeping the sleep of death on the [192] hills and plains round about. His country and posterity would charge him with all the responsibility of defeat, and he felt that his brief command of the once grand and mighty Army of the Potomac was now at an end. Sore and bitter recollections!