Waitt, Ernest Linden, History of the Nineteenth regiment, Massachusetts volunteer infantry , 1861-1865

After marching a mile, Sedgwick's Division halted and faced to the right, behind a fence. In front was a cornfield in which the First brigade was forming under General Gorman. Gen. Dana was in command of the Third or centre Brigade, in which was the Nineteenth Massachusetts regiment. The Second Brigade, under Gen. O. O. Howard, filed into the field in the rear, forming the third line. Gen. Sedgwick commanded the Division and took his position between the first and second lines and there led the charge. Only about forty paces separated the lines from each other.

It was a very faulty formation. The Division moved in three lines, each composed of a Brigade, without a skirmisher in front, in close order, and without connection or support on either flank. The faulty formation, as explained by Carleton, the Boston Journal's famous war correspondent, was probably due to the, fact that Sumner had been educated as a cavalry commander. Cavalry tactics form bodies in the mass, rather than in deployed lines. It seems probable that in this formation he used the tactics of the cavalry instead of the infantry.

Hooker's gallant corps was compelled to fall back, with Hooker wounded, and then came the order for the advance of Sumner's Second Corps. At the command ‘Forward’ the men climbed the fence and moved on through the corn which had been trampled and broken by the first line, into the open field beyond, under a heavy fire by the enemy's cannon stationed near the Dunker Church. Col. Hinks rode in advance of the Nineteenth regiment.

Here was presented an inspiring sight. The shells from the Union artillery in the rear were fired over the heads of their forces at the enemy in front. The First Brigade was just nearing a narrow belt of woods, just beyond which was posted the enemy's centre. Immediately in its rear rode Sumner, the gallant commander of the Corps,—hat in hand, with his long grey locks streaming in the wind, his smiling face looking as if the noise of howling shell and screeching shrapnel was sweet music to him.