Three years in the Sixth Corps

by George T. Stevens

The rebels had not left the day unimproved, in concentrating their troops and strengthening their works. They now held three lines of breastworks, all of great strength; the first occupied by their skirmish lines, the others by strong lines of battle. Between the two armies the ground was low and swampy, while the positions occupied by both were sandy plains.

At half-past six on the morning of the 3d, our army was astir; and the skirmishers, leaving the cover of the rifle pits, were advancing. Presently they fell in with the skirmishers of the enemy, and the sharp cracking of rifles betokened the storm of battle.

As soon as the skirmishers were engaged, our artillery opened upon the rebel works, and the conflict now commenced in earnest. Amid the deafening volleys of musketry, the thunders of the artillery, and the wild yells of battle, our brave fellows pressed rapidly across the space between the hostile lines of works, and the whole Union force was thrown against the rebel breastworks almost simultaneously. But the works were too strong, the abattis too troublesome, and the rebel forces too numerous. Their line could not be taken.

The vigorous and gallant assault made by the Sixth corps, resulted in carrying the first line, where the rebel skirmishers had been posted, and our troops got within two hundred and fifty yards of the main works, but Martindale's division of Smith's corps, which advanced with the Sixth corps, and on our right, found the task before it too great; the troops of that division became disarranged and were repulsed. Although General Smith, who was always up to the front, made several attempts to relieve Martindale's division, it failed to take the rifle pits.

The right flank of the Sixth corps, thus exposed, the whole corps was forced to fall back.

Thus this grand assault, in which General Grant hoped to force his enemy across the Chickahominy, failed with immense loss to us and comparatively little to the confederate army, which as usual was defended by earthworks, while our men advancing to the charge were unprotected. But our brave fellows were to have their revenge.

The battle was over, and again the occupants of the opposing lines of defenses watched each other, the quiet being only disturbed by the occasional shots of sharpshooters. Darkness closed over the plains of Coal Harbor, and even the sharpshooters desisted from their work. The stars shed a mild light upon the two armies which had so lately been engaged in fierce conflict, each now securely resting behind its line of earthworks, and the plain which lay between them, which the hurricane of battle had so lately swept, was as still as though the noise of war had never been heard there.

Suddenly, at eight o'clock, the rebels in front of our Sixth corps and of the Second corps, leaped over their works and rushed with a yell toward our lines. At the same time their artillery opened upon us. The course of their shells was marked by long curves of fire upon the dark sky, while the flashes of the guns and bursting missiles made a sublime display of pyrotechnics.

On came the charging column, against the left of the Sixth and the right of the Second corps; but nothing pleased our brave boys more than to see their enemies come out from the cover of their works to fight.

It had, during all these long days of battles, been ours to charge well defended earthworks almost invariably; and whenever the rebels chose to assume the offensive, our men were glad to show them the difference between being the assailants and the assailed.