[93]
 |
| Men who charged on Marye's heights Officers of the famous “Irish Brigade,” which lost more than 41 per cent. of its strength in the first assault at Marye's Heights. The Irish Brigade (consisting of the Twenty-eighth Massachusetts, the Sixty-third, Sixty-ninth, and Eighty-eighth New York, and the One Hundred and Sixteenth Pennsylvania) was commanded by General Thomas F. Meagher and advanced in Hancock's division to the first assault on December 13, 1862. At Antietam this brigade had spent its ammunition at the sunken road and then retired in splendid order. Again, in the charge at Marye's, the lines of the Irish soldiers were “beautifully and rapidly formed,” and they moved steadily up the ridge until within a few yards of another and more deadly sunken road, the unexpected fire from which mowed them down. Of the 1,315 men which Meagher led into battle, 545 fell in that charge. Hancock's entire command sustained that day a loss of 40.2 per cent., the second highest percentage of any division in any one engagement in the war. After the charge on Marye's Heights it numbered only 2,800 men. This group was photographed at Harrison's Landing, on the James River, in July, 1862. |
