A. J. Bennett, private , First Massachusetts Light Battery, The story of the First Massachusetts Light Battery , attached to the Sixth Army Corps : glance at events in the armies of the Potomac and Shenandoah, from the summer of 1861 to the autumn of 1864.

[122] Corps, occupied the left of the Union position, forming an advanced line extending through the Devil's Den, along the Emmetsburg road, across Plum Run to the spur of Round Top. This advanced line, Sickles's first position, has been the subject alike of adverse criticism and approval by military authorities. It was to turn this line and obtain possession of Little Round Top, the key of the Federal position, that Longstreet made the memorable assault, early in the afternoon, upon the lines of Sickles and Doubleday. The Third Corps was the extreme left, its infantry in front and behind it artillery,—several Massachusetts batteries, among them Bigelow's and Phillips's, and several companies under Capt. McGilvry of Maine. Later, the Fifth Corps arrived and were in position, and afterward the left wing was further reinforced by the infantry of the Sixth Corps. Before this line was a ravine, and beyond the ravine, sloping down to a stone-wall, was a wheatfield.

There was a skirmish at noon near the Emmetsburg road, for the possession of some cattle. This brought on the engagement of the day.

Nothing could exceed the vim, the terrible energy of the Confederate attack. Between two and three o'clock their legions, with that yell whose echo was infernal, poured over the wheatfield, over the stone-wall, past the ravine, striking with direful effect the divisions of the Third Corps, who fought with a valor never surpassed, realizing that a repulse at this point would result in yielding to the enemy the key of the Federal position—the Round Tops. Here Gen. Sickles lost his right leg while holding the heroic Third to the awful task that had devolved upon it and its associate corps. For two hours the conflict raged in this quarter, two divisions of the Fifth Corps having meanwhile arrived, and having been engaged upon the right of the Third. But the lines were scattered and driven back; several thousand arms had been lost. A little after five o'clock, a Confederate charge upon the First Division of the Third Corps on the extreme left, drove back the Federal infantry and threatened the batteries to which we have alluded as being behind the divisions of the Third Corps. Orders were sent to Capt. Bigelow of Massachusetts, whose battery was upon the extreme left, to hold his position at all hazards until two other batteries should be sent to support