previous next
[123] him. As the Confederates charged upon his guns, he opened with double charges of grape and canister, but he did not break their line, for they continually closed up their gaps and pressed on. After his canister was exhausted, he fired spherical case at short range. The enemy approach within six paces of his guns. He remembers the imperative order, and holds his place. They spring upon his carriages and shoot his horses; then Bigelow's cannoneers and he seize two of the guns and drag them by hand from the front line back to the position of the caissons, five out of six of which were saved. So the enemy fell upon Phillips's battery, its horses were shot down, its guns were drawn off by hand.

These scenes transpired in front and west of the ridge. Now from a new position on the slope, these batteries, and several that had reinforced them again, opened fire; the enemy, coming to attack these, were exposed to enfilading fires from the centre; whenever they came within this position, their punishment was terrible. Now the leading division of the Fifth Corps arrived to the aid of the left, advancing in line, Gen. Crawford leading, bearing the colors, as fugitives were rushing through his ranks. Crawford ordered a charge. Forward launched the division, pouring volley after volley into the Confederate ranks, which were driven back across the ravine, over the stone-wall and across the grainfield. The lost ground and quantities of arms were regained. Now arrived the other divisions of the Fifth and the infantry of the Sixth, strengthening the left and centre. On a dozen crests, points in the curved line extending from Round Top to our right centre, were batteries comprising, among others, all of the reserve artillery of the Army of the Potomac, whose fires crossed and murderously raked the paths of the advancing columns of the enemy, now turning his attention to the centre, breaking and shattering them, rendering their capture easy; and during the last hour of the combined effort of the Third, Fifth, and Sixth on the left and centre, it is said more prisoners were captured than in the whole previous time.

...

The Sixth Corps was within supporting distance at two o'clock on the 2d of July, after its all-night march, and reaching the road which leaves the Baltimore pike on the west (see map), moved along this way to Little Round Top, ready to take part in

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

hide People (automatically extracted)
Sort people alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
Crawford (2)
Round Top (1)
Little Round Top (1)
Phillips (1)
Bigelow (1)
hide Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
July 2nd (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: