Life and Military Career of Major-General William Tecumseh Sherman

by P. C. Headley

The brave Sherman was all the while expecting every moment to hear the roar of General Grant’s guns in the rear. With Monday came a succession of brilliant charges, which were fruitless as the dash of sunlit waves against the cannon-pierced granite of Gibraltar. If a momentary advantage were gained, it was lost in the return tide of overwhelming numbers. A spectator of these terribly sublime encounters, wrote:

“General Morgan, at eleven o’clock a. m., sent word to General Steele that he was about ready for the movement upon the hill, and wished the latter to support him with General Thayer’s brigade. General Steele accordingly ordered General Thayer to move his brigade forward, and be ready for the assault. The order was promptly complied with, and General Blair received from General Morgan the order to assault the hill. The artillery had been silent for some time; but Hoffman’s battery opened when the movement commenced. This was promptly replied to by the enemy, and taken up by Griffith’s First Iowa battery, and a vigorous shelling was the result. By the time General Blair’s brigade emerged from its cover of cypress forest, the shell were dropping fast among the men. A field-battery had been in position in front of Hoffman’s battery; but it limbered up and moved away beyond the heavy batteries and the rifle-pits.

“In front of the timber where Blair’s brigade had been lying was an abatis of young trees, cut off about three feet above the ground, and with the tops fallen promiscuously around. It took some minutes to pass this abatis, and by the time it was accomplished the enemy’s fire had not been without effect. Beyond this abatis was a ditch fifteen or twenty feet deep, and with two or three feet of water in the bottom. The bottom of the ditch was a quicksand, in which the feet of the men commenced sinking, the instant they touched it. By the time this ditch was passed the line was thrown into considerable confusion, and it took several minutes to put it in order. All the horses of the officers were mired in this ditch. Every one dismounted and moved up the hill on foot. Beyond this ditch was an abatis of heavy timber that had been felled several months before, and, from being completely seasoned, was more difficult of passage than that constructed of the greener and more flexible trees encountered at first. These obstacles were overcome under a tremendous fire from the enemy’s batteries and the men in the rifle-pits. The line was recovered from the disorder into which it had been thrown by the passage of the abatis; and with General Blair at their head, the regiments moved forward ‘upon the enemy’s works.’ The first movement was over a sloping plateau, raked by direct and enfilading fires from heavy artillery, and swept by a perfect storm of bullets from the rifle-pits. Nothing daunted by the dozens of men that had already fallen, the brigade pressed on, and in a few moments had driven the enemy from the first range of rifle-pits at the base of the hill, and were in full possession.

“Halting but a moment to take breath, the brigade renewed the charge, and speedily occupied the second line of rifle-pits, about two hundred yards distant from the first. General Blair was the first man of his brigade to enter. All this time the murderous fire from the enemy’s guns continued. The batteries were still above this line of rifle-pits. The regiments were not strong enough to attempt their capture without a prompt and powerful support. For them it had truly been a march

Into the jaws of death—

Into the mouth of hell.

“Almost simultaneously with the movement of General Blair on the left, General Thayer received his command to go forward. He had previously given orders to all his regiments in column to follow each other whenever the first moved forward. He accordingly placed himself at the head of his advance regiment, the Fourth Iowa, and his order—‘Forward, second brigade!’—rang out clear above the tumult. Colonel Williamson, commanding the Fourth Iowa, moved it off in splendid style. General Thayer supposed that all the other regiments of his brigade were following, in accordance with his instructions previously issued. He wound through the timber skirting the bayou, crossed at the same bridge where General Blair had passed but a few minutes before, made his way through the ditch and both lines of abatis, deflected the right and ascended the sloping plateau in the direction of the rifle-pits simultaneously with General Blair, and about two hundred yards to his right.

“When General Thayer reached the rifle-pits, after hard fighting and a heavy loss, he found, to his horror, that only the Fourth Iowa had followed him, the wooded nature of the place having prevented his ascertaining it before. Sadly disheartened, with little hope of success, he still pressed forward and fought his way to the second line, at the same time that General Blair reached it on the left. Colonel Williamson’s regiment was fast falling before the concentrated fire of the rebels, and with an anxious heart General Thayer looked around for aid.

“The rebels were forming three full regiments of infantry to move down upon General Thayer, and were massing a proportionately formidable force against Gen. Blair. The rebel infantry and artillery were constantly in full play, and two heavy guns were raking the rifle-pits in several places. With no hope of succor, General Thayer gave the order for a return down the hill and back to his original position. The Fourth Iowa, entering the fight five hundred strong, had lost a hundred and twenty men in less than thirty minutes. It fell back at a quick march, but with its ranks unbroken and without any thing of panic.

“It appears that just at the time General Thayer’s brigade started up the hill, General Morgan sent for a portion of it to support him on the right. General Steele at once diverted the Second Regiment of Thayer’s brigade, which was passing at the time. The Second Regiment being thus diverted, the others followed, in accordance with the orders they had previously received from their commander. Notice of the movement was sent to General Thayer; but, in consequence of the death of the courier, the notification never reached him. This accounts for his being left with nothing save the Fourth Iowa regiment. The occurrence was a sad one. The troops thus turned off were among the best that had yet been in action, and had they been permitted to charge the enemy, they would have won for themselves a brilliant record.