But Barry thinks he knows better, and hastily responds: "I know they are your battery-support."
Griffin spurs toward his pieces, countermands his previous order, and firing is resumed in the old direction.
Andrew Porter, has just ridden up to Heintzelman's side, and now catches sight of the Rebel regiment. "What troops are those?" he asks of General Hientzelman, pointing in their direction.
While Heintzelman is replying, and just as Averell drops his reins and levels his field-glass at them, "down come their pieces-rifles and muskets,—and probably," as Averell afterward said, "there never was such a destructive fire for a few minutes. It seemed as though every man and horse of that battery just laid right down, and died right off!"
It is a dreadful mistake that has been made. And there seems to have been no excuse for it either. The deliberateness of the Rebel colonel has given Barry abundant time to have discovered his error. For Griffin subsequently declared, under oath, that, "After the officer who had been talking to the regiment had got through, he faced them to the left, marched them about fifty yards to the woods, then faced them to the right again, marched them about forty yards toward us, then opened fire upon us—and that was the last of us!"
It is a terrible blunder. For, up to this moment, the battle is undeniably ours. And, while the Rebel colonel has been haranguing his brave men, there has been plenty of time to have "passed the word" along the line of our batteries, and poured canister into the Rebel regiment from the whole line of eleven guns, at point-blank range, which must inevitably have cut it all to pieces. The fate of the day hung balanced right there and then—with all the chances in favor of McDowell. But those chances are now reversed. Such are the fickle changes in the fortunes of battle!
Instead of our batteries cutting to pieces the Rebel Infantry regiment, the Rebel Infantry regiment has mowed down the gallant artillerists of our batteries. Hardly a man of them escapes. Death and destruction reap a wondrous and instant harvest. Wounded, dying, or dead, lie the brave cannoniers at their guns, officers and men alike hors du combat, while wounded horses gallop wildly back, with bounding caissons, down the gentle declivity, carrying disorder, and further danger, in their mad flight.
The supporting Fire Zouaves and Marines, on the right and left of our line of guns, stand, with staring eyes and dumb open-mouths, at the sudden turn of affairs. They are absolutely paralyzed with astonishment. They do not run at first. They stand, quaking and panic-stricken. They are urged to advance upon the Rebel regiment—"to give them a volley, and then try the bayonet." In vain! They fire perhaps 100 scattering shots; and receive in return, as they break and run down the hill to the rear, volley after volley, of deadly lead, from the Rebel muskets.
But, as this Rebel regiment (Cummings's 33rd Virginia) advances to seize the crippled and defenceless guns, it is checked, and driven back, by the 1st Michigan Regiment of Willcox's Brigade, which has pushed forward in the woods at our extreme right.
Meanwhile, having been ordered by McDowell to support Ricketts's Battery, Howard has formed his four tired regiments into two lines—Berry's 4th Maine, and Whitney's 2nd Vermont, on the right and left of the first; and Dunnell's 5th, and his own 3rd Maine, under Staples, in the second line. Howard himself leads his first line up the elevated plateau of the Henry House. Reaching the crest, the line delivers its fire, volley after volley, despite the concentrated hail of the Enemy's Artillery and muskets. As the second line advances, a Rebel cannon-ball, and an unfortunate charge of our own Cavalry, scatters most of the 5th Maine. The 2nd Vermont, which has advanced 200 yards beyond the crest, rapidly firing, while the Enemy retires, is now, in turn, forced back by the Enemy's hot fire, and is replaced by the 3rd Maine, while the remnant of the 5th moves up to the extreme right of Howard's now single line. But the Rebel fire grows hotter and hotter, and owing to this, and a misunderstood order, Howard's line begins to dissolve, and then retires in confusion,—Howard and others vainly striving to rally his own utterly exhausted men.