Pictorial history of the war for the Union, volume 1 (of 2) : $b A complete and reliable history of the war from its commencement to its close ... together with a complete chronological analysis of the warStephens, Ann S. (Ann Sophia)
History
Pictorial history of the war for the Union, volume 1 (of 2) : $b A complete and reliable history of the war from its commencement to its close ... together with a complete chronological analysis of the war
Stephens, Ann S. (Ann Sophia)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
On the extreme right Schwartz and Taylor were blazing away fearlessly.
The ground between them and the intrenchments was nearly cleared of
trees, and they could observe by the smoke the position of each other
with accuracy. The firing from the batteries in McClernand’s division
was continuous. An attempt had been made by the enemy to capture
Taylor’s battery, which had been gallantly repulsed. The rebels had
reached close upon the battery, and only an incessant shower of canister
saved it from capture, the infantry not being formed in position to
support it effectually. The Twentieth Illinois came up in time to drive
the enemy into their works.
In the afternoon General McClernand determined to make a formidable
assault of a redoubt of the enemy, fronting the centre of his right. The
redoubt was the only one which could be distinctly seen, owing to timber
and undergrowth. At this point the ground was for the most part void of
large timber, the barren extending even beyond the road on the ridge
which the Union troops passed. The batteries of this redoubt had a very
perfect range, and gave the troops considerable uneasiness, by blazing
away at them whenever they passed over the brow of the hill. Three
regiments were detailed for the work—the Forty-eighth, Seventeenth and
Forty-ninth Illinois. They advanced in line of battle order, the
Forty-ninth, Colonel Morrison, on the right, the Seventeenth, under
command of Major Smith, in the centre, and the Forty-eighth, Colonel
Hainley, on the left. Colonel Morrison, as senior Colonel, led the
attack. The advance was a most beautiful one. With skirmishers arrayed
in front, the three regiments swept down the hill, over a knoll, down a
ravine, and up the high hill on which the redoubt was situated, some two
hundred and fifty or three hundred feet in height, covered with brush
and stumps, all the time receiving a galling fire of grape, shell and
musketry, with a precision which would have done them credit on the
parade ground. The breastworks were nearly reached, when Colonel
Morrison, while gallantly leading his men, was struck by a musket ball.
The captain of the company on his right was also killed, while the
Forty-ninth fell into some confusion; but unappalled the Seventeenth
still gallantly pressed forward and penetrated even to the very foot of
the works. But it was not in the power of man to scale the abattis
before them. Brush piled upon brush, with sharp points, fronted them
wherever they turned; so, after a few interchanges of musketry with the
swarming regiments concentrated there, the word for retiring was given.
It was done in good order, by filing off to the left and obliqueing into
the woods below; but many a gallant soldier was left behind underneath
the intrenchments he had vainly sought to mount. They were not, however,
destined to die unavenged. Scarcely, had their retiring columns got out
of range, ere Taylor’s Chicago battery opened on the swarming rebel
masses with shell and shrapnell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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