Just as the day dawn was struggling through the clouds, we were roused by the sound of several guns, fired in quick succession. We were on our feet instantly, and saw that all was ready for action. Shells came howling at us from batteries that we could discern in the dim light. We could see the light of their burning fuses, as they started out of their guns, and could trace their flight toward us by that. Some of them would strike the ground in front, and ricochet over us; some would crash into our work, with a terrific thud, and some went screaming over our heads,—very close, too, and went on to the rear to look after our Right Section guns, which were still by that farmhouse, where we had left them, the evening before. They knocked down several of the shelter tents our boys were sleeping under, and several of our fellows, there, had the narrowest kind of an escape. One shell “caromed” over three of the men, who were sleeping side by side, touching the very blanket that was over them. The Right Section boys needed no reveille that morning to get them out! They tumbled up with great promptness and moved round out of the line of fire. Fortunately none of them were actually hurt, just here. One fellow was sleeping with several canteens of water hanging right over his head. A bullet went through them. He was nearly drowned!
The Bloodiest Fifteen Minutes of the War
In our front, this artillery fire kept up for a while, then it stopped! The next moment, there was an awful rush! From every quarter their infantry came pouring on over the fields, and through the woods, yelling and firing, and coming at a run. Their columns seemed unending! Enough people to sweep our thin lines from the face of the earth! Up and down our battle line, the fierce musketry broke out. To right and left it ran, crashing and rolling like the sound of a heavy hail on a tin roof, magnified a thousand times, with the cannon pealing out in the midst of it like claps of thunder. Our line, far as the eye could reach, was ablaze with fire; and into that furious storm of death, the blue columns were swiftly urging their way.
Straight in our front one mass was advancing on us and we were hurling case-shot through their ranks,—when, suddenly! glancing to the right, we saw another column, which had rushed out of the woods on our right front, by the flank, almost upon us, not forty-five yards outside our line. Instantly we turned our guns upon them with double canister! Two or three shots doubled up the head of that column. It resolved itself into a formless crowd, that still stood stubbornly there, but could not get one step farther. And then, for three or four minutes, at short pistol range, the infantry and our Napoleon guns tore them to pieces. It was deadly, and bloody work! They were a helpless mob, now; a swarming multitude of confused men! They were falling by scores, hundreds! The mass was simply melting away under the fury of our fire. Then, they broke in panic, and headlong rout!
Many fearing to retreat under that deadly fire, dropped down behind the stumps near our line, and when the others had gone, we ordered them to come in. Several hundred prisoners were captured in this way. To show what our works were,—I saw one tall fellow jump up from behind a stump, run to our work, and with “a hop, skip, and a jump,” he leaped entirely over it, and landed inside our line. And a foolish looking fellow he was, when he picked himself up!
Just as the enemy broke, Ben Lambert, “No. 1” at “4th” gun, was severely wounded, in the right arm, just as he raised it to swab his gun. One of the boys took his place, and the fire kept on.
The great assault was over and had failed! Only ten or fifteen minutes was its fury raging! In that ten minutes, thirteen thousand Federal soldiers lay stricken, with death, or wounds. In those few moments, Grant lost nearly as many men as the whole British Army lost in the entire battle of Waterloo.
Just to our right the enemy got over our works, and the guns right and left of the break were turned on them. We heard a “yell” behind us, and round a piece of pines came Eppa Hunton’s Brigade of Virginians, at a run; General Eppa on horse-back leading them in, at a gallop. The Virginians delivered their volley at the Federals inside our lines, then sprang on them like tigers. Next minute the few, left of them, were flying back over the works.
In the thick of the fight, Barksdale’s Mississippi Brigade, now commanded by General Humphreys, to which our Battery had been attached, being unengaged just at that time, heard that the infantry supporting us was not effective, and that the “Howitzers” were in danger of being run over. They requested permission to come to our help, and two Regiments came tearing down the lines to our position, manned the line by us, and went to work. What work these splendid fellows could do in a fight! We had been very uneasy about our supports, and were delighted to see the Mississippians, especially, as they had voluntarily come to our help, in such a handsome manner.
The spectacle in front of our line was simply sickening! The horrible heaps of dead lay so ghastly, and the wounded were so thickly strewn all over the field. To right, and to left, out in front, along our line, as far as we could see, this dreadful array of the dead and wounded stretched! It was pitiful to see the wounded writhing, and to hear their cries of agony. And here again, as at Spottsylvania, these wounded were left between the lines, to perish miserably, of hunger and thirst, and mortifying wounds.