Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard Memorial Biographies

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[122] afternoon of July 2, 1863, the division to which his regiment belonged was moved from the right to reinforce the left of the line. In the evening the command was ordered back again, and the regiment set out for the intrenchments it had before occupied. Before reaching them, the scouts in advance reported them as held by the Rebels. The regiment was manoeuvred with great skill and promptness by its young commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Mudge, so as to be prepared for an attack, and a company was sent out to reconnoitre. It returned without bringing sufficiently satisfactory information. The night was dark, the situation critical, and it was absolutely necessary to discover the exact position and force of the foe. In this exigency, Captain Fox was directed to push forward his company, and at all hazards to find and ascertain the numbers of the enemy. Deploying his men, he advanced rapidly and silently until he met and captured some of the hostile skirmishers, and carried his company nearly up to the opposing line of battle. This demonstration drew a heavy fire, under which, the object of the reconnoissance having been accomplished, he fell back. The regiment at once threw up new defences, facing the works it had previously built, and waited for the day. Early the next morning the Second Massachusetts and the Twenty-seventh Indiana were ordered to advance across the open meadow, and take the position then held by the enemy on the other side. It seemed certain destruction, but the order was instantly obeyed. The advance was at first successful, and the enemy's works were occupied by our forces; but the heavy fire of the outnumbering foe, intrenched behind trees and rocks, —and a movement made on both flanks with a view to surrounding the attacking force,—--compelled the two regiments to fall back to save themselves from annihilation. How near the Second came to this fate is seen in the fact that, in a distance of about four hundred yards, and in about twenty minutes, out of two hundred and ninety-four men and twenty-two officers, it lost one hundred and thirty-four killed and wounded.

Captain Fox was near the centre of the meadow, rallying his