Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 2.

[430] that of Reynolds (who was a prisoner), under Colonel S. G. Simmons, of the Fifth Pennsylvania, in reserve. The artillery was all in front of this line. Randall's regular battery was on the right, Cooper and Kerns's opposite the center, and Dietrich's and Kennerheim's (20-pounder Parrotts) on the left. Sumner was some distance to the left, with Sedgwick's division; Hooker was at Sumner's left, and Kearney was at the right of McCall.

Longstreet and Hill had hurried forward to gain this point before McClellan's army could pass it, hoping there to cut that army in two and destroy it. But they were a little too late. When Longstreet (who was accompanied by Lee and Jefferson Davis) found himself confronted there, he waited for Magruder to come up, and it was not until between three and four o'clock in the afternoon

June 30. 1862.

that he began an attack. He fell heavily upon McCall, whose force (Pennsylvania Reserves), when he reached the Pamunkey, was ten thousand, but had been reduced by sickness, fatigue, and fighting, to six thousand. The Confederates attempted by the weight of their first blow to crush his left, but were repulsed by a charge of the Fifth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Pennsylvania Reserves, led by Colonel Simmons, who captured two hundred of them and drove the remainder back to the woods. Then the fugitives turned, and by a murderous fire made the pursuers recoil, and flee to the forest in the rear of their first position. In that encounter the slaughter was dreadful. Simmons was mortally wounded, and the dead or maimed bodies of hundreds of his comrades strewed the field.

This first struggle was quickly followed by others. Backward and forward the contending lines were swayed by charges and counter-charges, for two hours. To break the National line and to capture its batteries seemed to be the chief object of the assailants. Cooper's battery, in the center, was taken, and then retaken, together with the standard of an Alabama regiment; and this was followed by the appearance of General Meagher, with his Irish brigade, who made a desperate charge across an open field, and drove the Confederates to the woods. By a gallant charge of a brigade (Fifty-fifth and Sixtieth Virginia), Randall's battery on the right was also captured, and the greater portion of its supporting regiment was driven back, when McCall and Meade rallied their infantry for its recapture. A terrible hand-to-hand fight ensued, and the reserves were repulsed, but they carried back with them their recovered guns. In this encounter, just at dark, Meade was severely wounded, and McCall, who had lost all of his brigadiers and was reconnoitering, was captured. Then the command devolved upon Seymour. The noise of battle had brought some of the troops of Hooker and Kearney to the field of action just at dark, and soon afterward the sound of cheering from the First New Jersey brigade (General Taylor) startled the wearied and broken Confederates, and they fell back to the woods. These fresh troops recovered a part of the ground lost by the Reserves. So ended the battle of Glendale.¹