[89]
and Colquitt's and Anderson's brigades.
Peninsula Campaign, p. 160.
The task was, however, too great for their unaided strength, and having done all that men dare do, they were driven back with frightful loss—a loss, perhaps, of not less than 2,000 men.
Just as
Hill drew off his shattered brigades,
Magruder ordered in his forces on
Hill's right.
The brigades of
Armistead,
Wright,
Mahone,
G. T. Anderson,
Cobb,
Kershaw,
Semmes,
Ransom,
Barksdale and
Lawton threw themselves heavily, not all at once, but in succession, against their courageous and impregnably posted foes.
Cobb's command included the Fifteenth North Carolina under
Colonel Dowd.
Ransom's brigade was solely a
North Carolina one—the Twenty-fourth,
Colonel Clark; the Twenty-fifth,
Colonel Hill; the Twenty-sixth,
Colonel Vance; the Thirty-fifth,
Colonel Ransom; the Forty-ninth,
Colonel Ramseur.
General Hill says of
General Magruder's assault:
I never saw anything more grandly heroic than the advance after sunset of the nine brigades under Magruder's orders.
Unfortunately, they did not move together and were beaten in detail.
As each brigade emerged from the woods, from fifty to one hundred guns opened upon it, tearing great gaps in its ranks; but the heroes reeled on, and were shot down by the reserves at the guns, which a few squads reached. . . . Not only did the fourteen brigades which were engaged suffer, but the inactive troops and those brought up as reserves, too late to be of any use, met many casualties from the frightful artillery fire which reached all parts of the woods.
1
General Porter, whose activity contributed much to the success of the
Federal troops, bears this tribute to the reckless bravery of the whole attacking force:
As if moved by a reckless disregard of life, equal to that displayed at Gaines' Mill, with a determination to
