Three years in the Sixth Corps

by George T. Stevens

Monday night passed quietly. An occasional volley on the picket line would rouse us to arms, but there was no general assault, and the tired soldiers would throw themselves again upon the ground to catch a few moments more of rest.

Our position on Tuesday morning, May 10th, was the same as it had been the day previous. During the lull of battle on the 9th, both armies had gathered their strength and perfected their plans for a renewal of the contest, on a scale of magnificence seldom if ever witnessed by any army before. This was destined to be a day of most fearful carnage, and desperate attempts on the part of each antagonist to crush the other by the weight of its terrible charges.

Active skirmishing commenced along different portions of the line early in the morning, and continued to grow more and more general until the rattle of the skirmishers' rifles grew into the reverberating roll of battle. From one end of the long line to the other the tide of battle surged, the musketry continually increasing in volume, until it seemed one continuous peal of thunder. During all the battles in the Wilderness, artillery had been useless, except when here and there a section could be brought in to command the roadway; but now all the artillery on both sides was brought into the work. It was the terrible cannonading of Malvern Hill with the fierce musketry of Gaines' Mills combined, that seemed fairly to shake the earth and skies. Never during the war had the two armies made such gigantic struggles for the destruction of each other.

At first the heavy assaults were made against the right wing—Hancock's and Warren's corps sustaining the principal shock of the enemy's repeated charges. Massing their forces against particular points of the line held by these two corps, the rebel generals would hurl their gray legions like an avalanche against our breastworks, hoping by the very momentum of the charge to break through our lines; but a most withering storm of leaden and iron hail would set the mass wavering, and finally send it back to the cover of the woods and earthworks in confusion, leaving the ground covered at each time with an additional layer of their dead. In turn, the men of the Fifth and Second corps would charge upon their adversaries, and in turn they too would be forced to seek shelter behind their rifle pits. Thus the tide of battle along the right of the line rolled to and fro, while the horrid din of musketry and artillery rose and swelled as the storm grew fiercer.

Meanwhile the Sixth and Ninth corps were quietly awaiting events, and it was not until six o'clock in the afternoon that the Sixth corps was called into action. Then it was to make one of the most notable charges on record.

At five o'clock the men of the corps were ordered to unsling knapsacks and divest themselves of every incumbrance preparatory to a charge. Colonel Upton commanding the Second brigade of the First division, was directed to take twelve picked regiments from the corps and lead them in a charge against the right center of the rebel line. The regiments which shared the dearly purchased honor of this magnificent charge were, in the first line, the One Hundred and Twenty-first New York, the Fifth Maine, the Ninety-sixth and One Hundred and Nineteenth Pennsylvania; in the second line the Seventy-seventh and Forty-third New York, the Fifth Wisconsin, Sixth Maine and Forty-ninth Pennsylvania; and in the third line, the Second, Fifth and Sixth Vermont. It was indeed an honor to be selected for this duty, but it was an honor to be paid for at the cost of fearful peril.

The twelve regiments assembled on the open space in front of our works, then silently entered the strip of woods which was between our line and that of the rebels. Passing through to the further edge of the woods, the twelve regiments were formed in columns of three lines, each line consisting of four regiments.

The regiments of the Second division, not included in the charging column, formed in the rear, to act as support, but did not advance to the charge.

As the regiments took their places, they threw themselves upon the ground, and all orders were given in suppressed tones, for the rebels were but a hundred yards distant, in the open field, and the minies of their skirmishers were whistling among the trees and brushwood.

The other corps of the army were prepared, in case this charging party succeeded in breaking the enemy's line, to rush in and turn the success into a rout of the rebels. Generals Meade, Hancock, Warren and Burnside stationed themselves on eminences, from which they could watch the success of the perilous enterprise.