The artillery in the fort was under the command of Lieutenant Samuel N. Benjamin, Second U. S. Artillery, whose battery of twenty-pounder Parrotts had done good service at South Mountain and Antietam. The infantry was of Ferrero's division of the Ninth Corps. There was a slight abatis in front of the fort, and on the suggestion of Mr. Hoxie, an officer of the railway, some old telegraph wire left at the depot was used by Captain Poe to make an entanglement by fastening it between small stumps of a grove which had been felled along the slope northwest of the bastion at the salient. Longstreet's plan of assault was to attack the northwest angle of the fort with two columns of regiments, consisting of Wofford's and Humphrey's brigades of McLaws's division. Anderson's brigade was to attack the infantry trench a little east of the fort. Longstreet's instructions were to make the assault at break of day on the 29th. The columns were to move silently and swiftly without firing and endeavor to carry the parapet by the bayonet. [Footnote: Longstreet's Report, Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. p. 461.] The determined advance of the enemy's rifle pits by his skirmishers in the night of the 28th gave warning of what was to be expected. The morning of the 29th was damp and foggy, but the watchful pickets detected the formation of the enemy's columns. About six o'clock the Confederate batteries opened a heavy fire on the fort, which did not reply, ammunition being too precious to be wasted. In about twenty minutes the cannonade ceased and the columns moved to the assault. The fire of our lines was concentrated upon them, and they lost heavily; but they kept on, somewhat disordered by the entanglement as well as by their losses, and came to the ditch. No doubt its depth and the high face of the parapet surprised them, for they had no scaling ladders. They jumped into the ditch and tried to scramble up the slope of the earthwork. Some got to the top, only to be shot down or captured. The guns flanking the ditch raked it with double charges of canister. Shells were lighted and thrown as hand-grenades into the practically helpless crowd below. Those who had not entered the ditch soon wavered and fell back, at first sullenly and slowly, then in despair running for life to cover. Those who remained and could walk surrendered and were marched to the southwest angle of the fort, where they were brought within the lines.