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

[137] ordered to lie down, while the minie balls rained upon them, seemingly as thick as hail stones, and the buzz of canister shot was continual. It was awful to lay there with no chance to reply, but Col. Hinks sat on his horse near the centre of the regiment, amid the heaviest fire of which he seemed to be the special object, watching the movements of the enemy, and, as his men remarked, exhibiting no consciousness of danger. With folded arms and a smile upon his lips, he remained thus at a distance of less than a hundred and fifty yards from the line of the enemy which was pouring its incessant fire upon the position. The first brigade was almost annihilated. One single shot of an Enfield or Springfield rifle could hit a man in the front rank of the first brigade and go through to the rear rank of the last brigade. Soon the front line began to fall back, climbing up the rocky steep to the position of the Nineteenth. Some of the men on the left were firing toward its rear and left. The others yelled to them ‘What are you doing? Don't you know any better than to fire into our third line?’ One of them replied: ‘You had better look back and see if they are the third line.’ Where was the third line? No one knew! The wood was clear of any enemy in the immediate rear, but to the left was the rebel line extending back beyond the road and marching down, rolling up the brigades and firing into them.

Gen. Sumner was talking with Col. Kimball, commanding the Fifteenth Massachusetts regiment, when Maj. Philbrick of that regiment shouted: ‘See the rebels!’ Gen. Sumner looked in the direction in which Maj. Philbrick pointed and exclaimed ‘My God, we must get out of this!’

Howard's brigade was then facing toward the west. He was at once directed to face it to the southwest, but there was not time before the blow fell. French's division had not yet arrived near enough, so that the left of Sumner's Corps was not properly closed on the adjoining force, and the enemy instantly threw troops into the gap, almost surrounding it and bringing an enfilading fire from front and flank and rear to add to the fierceness of the fight. The Division was helpless and a third of its number were cut down in a few minutes.

The three lines were too close to serve as rallying points to