Brave Deeds of Union Soldiers

by Samuel Scoville

Once again there was the same confused hand-to-hand fighting as had taken place at the outer fortifications. This time the result was different. The crafty Lee had hurried a dense mass of troops through the mist. These men crawled forward in the smoke, reserving their fire until they got to the very inside edge of the Angle. Then with the terrible long-drawn Rebel yell, they sprang to their feet and dashed into the breastworks with a volley that killed every Union soldier who had crossed over. Down too went the men in front, still tangled in the abattis. Every artillery horse was shot and Colonel Upton of the 95th Pennsylvania Volunteers was the only mounted officer in sight.

"Stick to it, boys," he shouted, riding back and forth and waving his hat. "We've got to hold this point!"

In a dense mass the Confederates poured into the breastworks and for a moment it seemed as if they would sweep the Union forces back and retake the half-moon salient. At this moment the Pennsylvanians were reinforced by the 5th Maine and the 121st New York, but the Confederates had the advantage of the breastworks and the Union men began to waver. Then a little two-gun battery of the Second Corps did a very brave thing. They were located at the foot of a hill back of a pine-grove. As the news came that the Union men were giving way, they limbered the guns, the drivers and cannoneers mounted the horses and up the hill at full gallop they charged through the Union infantry and right up to the breastworks, the only case of a charge by a battery in history. Then in a second they unlimbered their guns and poured in a fire of the tin cans filled with bullets called canister which was deadly on the close-packed ranks of the Confederates hurrying up to the Angle. The Union gunners were exposed to the full fire of the men back of the breastworks, but they never flinched. The left gun fired nine rounds and the right fourteen double charges. These cannonades simply mowed the men down in groups. Captain Fish of General Upton's staff left his men and rushed to help this little battery. Back and forth he rode before the guns and the caissons carrying stands of canister under his rubber coat.

"Give it to 'em, boys," he shouted. "I'll bring you canister if you'll only use it."

Again and again he rode until, just as he turned to cheer the gunners once more, he fell mortally wounded. The guns were fired until all of the horses were killed, the guns, carriages and buckets cut to pieces by the bullets and only two of the twenty-three men of the battery were left on their feet. Leaving their two brass pieces which had done such terrible execution still on the breastworks cut and hacked by the bullets from both sides, the lone two marched back through the cheering infantry.

"That's the way to do it," shouted Colonel Upton. "Hold 'em, men! Hold 'em!" And his men held.

The soft mud came up half-way to their knees. Under the continued tramping back and forth, the dead and wounded were almost buried at their feet. The shattered ranks backed off a few yards, then closed up and started to hold their place out in the open against the constantly increasing masses of the enemy back of the breastworks of the Angle. The space was so narrow that only a certain number of men on each side could get into action at once. A New Jersey and Vermont brigade hurried in to help while on the other side General Lee sent all the men that could find a place to fight back of the breastworks. Into the mêlée came an orderly who shouted in Colonel Upton's ear so as to be heard over the rattle of musketry and the roar of yells and cheers:

"General Grant says, 'Hold on!'"

"Tell General Grant we are holding on," shouted back Colonel Upton.

The men in the mud now directed all their fire at the top of the breastworks and picked off every head and hand that showed above. The Confederates then fired through the loopholes, or placed their rifles on the top log and holding by the trigger and the small of the stock lifted the breach high enough to fire at the attacking forces. The losses on both sides were frightful. A gun and a mortar battery took position half a mile back of the Union forces and began to gracefully curve shells and bombs just over the heads of their comrades so as to drop within the ramparts. Sometimes the enemy's fire would slacken. Then some reckless Union soldier would seize a fence-rail or a piece of the abattis and creep close to the breastworks and thrust it over as if he was stirring up a hornet's nest, dropping on the ground to avoid the volley that was sure to follow. One daring lieutenant leaped upon the breastworks and took a rifle that was handed up to him and fired it into the masses of the Confederate soldiers behind. Another one was handed up and he fired that and was about aiming with a third when he was riddled with a volley and pitched headlong among the enemy.