Griffin’s division was next ordered to attack, and made the usual desperate struggle. The Confederates meanwhile had accumulated such force in the road that a single division, had it reached that point, would have found its equal in numbers, and of greater vigor, with Ransom at the top of the hill prepared to rush down and join in the mêlée. At that hour we could have safely invited one division into our midst, if assured it was to be the last.
The next attack was made by Humphreys’s division. Its commander was a man of superior attainments and accomplishments in the walks of civil as well as military life. He measured justly the situation, and arranged his battle in the only order by which success could have been made possible, but he had only two brigades with which to take a position not assailable and held by more than three brigades of superior troops. His troops were new, so that he felt called to personal example as well as skilful handling. He ordered the attack with empty muskets, and led with his brigade commanders, but half-way up towards the goal his men stopped to load and open fire, which neither he nor his officers could prevent, so they were driven back. Then he made a like effort with his other brigade, under special orders from Generals Burnside and Hooker that the point must be carried before night,—and the dew was then falling. (Just then our second big Parrott gun went into fragments, but without damage to the men.) The troops that had been driven back from previous attacks joined in trying to persuade Humphreys’s men not to go forward. Notwithstanding the discouraging surroundings, he led his men on, encountered the same terrific and death-dealing opposition, and his men retired in greater confusion, going beyond his control to the vicinity of the city before he could get them again in ranks. His account of the last effort is interesting:
“The stone wall was a sheet of flame that enveloped the head and flanks of the column. Officers and men were falling rapidly, and the head of the column was at length brought to a stand when close up to the wall. Up to this time not a shot had been fired by the column, but now some firing began. It lasted but a minute, when, in spite of all our efforts, the column turned and began to retire slowly. I attempted to rally the brigade behind the natural embankment so often mentioned, but the united efforts of General Tyler, myself, our staff, and other officers could not arrest the retiring mass.”[112]
At that time there were three brigades behind the stone wall and one regiment of Ransom’s brigade. The ranks were four or five deep,—the rear files loading and passing their guns to the front ranks, so that the volleys by brigade were almost incessant pourings of solid sheets of lead.
Two brigades of Sykes’s division, First and Second Regulars, were sent to the front to guard the line. It was some time after nightfall, so that their line could only be distinguished by the blaze of their fire. Some of the batteries and infantry engaged against their fire till night was well advanced.
General Jackson thought to advance against the enemy’s left late in the afternoon, but found it so well posted and guarded that he concluded the venture would be too hazardous. He lost his opportunity, failing to follow close upon the repulse of Meade’s and Gibbon’s divisions. His command was massed and well in hand, with an open field for infantry and artillery. He had, including the divisions of Hood and Pickett,—ordered to work with him,—about fifty thousand men. Franklin had, including troops of the Centre Grand Division, about equal force.
The charge of Meade’s division has been compared with that of Pickett’s, Pettigrew’s, and Trimble’s at Gettysburg, giving credit of better conduct to the former. The circumstances do not justify the comparison.
When the fog lifted over Meade’s advance he was within musket-range of A. P. Hill’s division, closely supported on his right by Gibbon’s, and guarded on his left by Doubleday’s division. On Hill’s right was a fourteen-gun battery, on his left eight guns. Meade broke through Hill’s division, and with the support of Gibbon forced his way till he encountered part of Ewell’s division, when he was forced back in some confusion. Two fresh divisions of the Third Corps came to their relief, and there were as many as fifty thousand men at hand who could have been thrown into the fight. Meade’s march to meet his adversary was half a mile,—the troops of both sides fresh and vigorous.
Of the assaulting columns of Pickett, Pettigrew, and Trimble, only four thousand seven hundred under Pickett were fresh; the entire force of these divisions was only fifteen thousand strong. They had a mile to march over open field before reaching the enemy’s line, strengthened by field-works and manned by thrice their numbers. The Confederates at Gettysburg had been fought to exhaustion of men and munitions. They lost about sixty per cent. of the assaulting forces,—Meade about forty. The latter had fresh troops behind him, and more than two hundred guns to cover his rallying lines. The Confederates had nothing behind them but field batteries almost exhausted of ammunition. That Meade made a brave, good fight is beyond question, but he had superior numbers and appointments. At Gettysburg the Confederate assault was made against intrenched lines of artillery and infantry, where stood fifty thousand men.
A series of braver, more desperate charges than those hurled against the troops in the sunken road was never known, and the piles and cross-piles of dead marked a field such as I never saw before or since.