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

[179] to the right, marched up Hanover Street in company front. Here were many fine buildings, but the street was enfiladed by the rebel guns. Many men were lying dead and wounded in the middle of the street. Now and then a shell came bounding along. To avoid the shells, the men were ordered to take to the side-walk, and the march was continued at a quick-step. Gen. O. O. Howard was met and he spoke an encouraging word as he passed. The wounded were moving to the rear in crowds, a sickening sight. The houses soon were further and further apart but the shells, on the contrary, came nearer and nearer. The air was full of missiles. Soon some fences were encountered and the men hastily crawled over, through or under them and then crossed several yards surrounding some of the houses. Soon they reached the canal which intersects the city and found the bridges were crowded with fugitives, wounded men and stretcher bearers. The regiment pushed across the ditch, down one side and up the other,—and hurried forward, but soon filed to the right and formed in line of battle in a field, under cover of a steep bank which protected them from the rebel shots and which formed the edge of a plateau reaching to the rebel rifle pits at the foot of the fortified hills.

While the regiment was waiting for the line to be extended to the right, the Nineteenth Maine regiment filed past. This was their ‘Baptism of Fire.’ It was amusing to see the effect of the cannon shot on them. As each shot passed over the regiment, from right to left, the men would duck their heads successively like the waving of grain in the wind. The rebels had a good line shot, but could not depress their pieces enough to hit them.

The line of the Nineteenth Massachusetts had hardly formed when Capt. Weymouth ordered ‘Forward.’ Up the ascent they sprang, and on toward the rifle pits of the enemy. The plain over which they had to charge was some four hundred yards in width and had a gradual rise to the base of the Heights. With its colors well to the front, the regiment,—a mere handful of men,—advanced across the plain. The dead of Parke, of Hancock and of French lay all around them, the grass was