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Union Line of Defense:
Finally aware that great numbers of Confederates were marching on their camps, the Union Sixth Division organized its first line of defense along the ridge in front of you. Henry M. Stanley, a Confederate infantryman, described what it was like here when his regiment tried to break through the Union Line:
Still advancing, firing as we moved, I, at last, saw a row of little globes of pearly smoke streaked with crimson, breaking out with spurtive quickness from a long line of bluey figures in front; and, simultaneously, there broke upon our ears an appalling crash of sound, the series of fusillades following one another with startling suddenness, which suggested to my somewhat moldered sense a mountain upheaved, with huge rocks tumbling and thundering down a slope, and the echoes rumbling and receding through space. ...
Twenty thousand muskets were being fired at this stage, but, though accuracy of aim was impossible, owing to our laboring hearts, and the jarring and excitement, many bullets found their destined billets on both sides. |