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

[237] The rain of shot and shell was continuous. Fragments of bursting shell were flying everywhere. There seemed to be no place where they did not strike and no spot from whence they did not come. Officers and men alike, keeping their alignment, crawled to places of apparent cover. Some got behind the few large boulders, others took advantage of depressions in the ground.

So thick did the missiles fly that in a few moments nearly all of the inverted muskets were knocked down or shot off; pieces of shell were plainly visible as they hissed by; limber boxes and caissons were hit and blew up with stunning reports; the battery horses were nearly all shot down.

Men, lying flat behind large boulders, were struck. A shot would come over and strike a man in the back. Men were constantly seen hobbling off, with blood streaming from their wounds. During all this time, not a musket had been fired at the enemy.

About this time a company of the First Minnesota regiment came up from Gen. Meade's headquarters, where it had been on duty.

When this company reached the left of the position of the Nineteenth Massachusetts, its captain said: ‘Here's the Nineteenth boys, now we are all right. Fall right in here,’—and once again the boys of Minnesota and Massachusetts stood shoulder to shoulder, as at Antietam.

After an hour and forty minutes of continuous firing, the cannonade ceased almost as suddenly as it had begun, and the men stood and ‘shook themselves’ until the lines were reformed. The dense clouds of smoke obscured the field in front. They settled and rolled along, and, meanwhile, fresh guns were hurried to the crest.