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flesh and cloth they lay, shaking continually as the bullets struck them from either side.
One gun, with limber attached, from either Gillis' U. S. or Brown's R. I. Battery,—a section of each being brought up when the breastworks were carried—lay between the Nineteenth and the woods in line of battle.
Two of the horses were killed and the driver had been entangled in the harness and killed.
Horses and men were completely riddled by bullets and there was not a place untouched on them the size of a man's hand.
Trees, some as large as a man's body, which stood between the lines, were shot off and fell.
Looking back in the light of history, it seems as though this great battle, so successful in many ways, might have been more so had the troops been differently handled.
If the First Brigade had gone forward with less noise, more slowly and carefully, keeping a better line until the farther edge of the woods had been reached and then made a dash in a more solid line, the breastworks which were carried by it might have been held until supports came up.
Gen. Walker in his History of the Second Corps, does not mention the part taken by the First Brigade, Second Division, in the charge and by this omission, the reader of his work is led to believe that the Brigade was held in reserve.
Owing to the nature of the ground over which the charge was made, and the confusion, and mixing up of the different Brigades, and the mist, he no doubt lost trace of Webb's command for a time.
He says: ‘On the Union side the confusion had become extreme.
The long lines formed for the assault had insensibly converged as the salient was reached, and were heaped upon one another.
Carroll and Owen's brigades of Gibbon's (the Second) division, which was formed in reserve, had been caught by the wild excitement of the charge, and, dashing forward to the front, struggled even past some of the leading troops (First Division, Second Corps) and entered the Confederate works on Stewart's Line, almost at the same moment with the brigades of Mills and Brooks.’
But, notwithstanding General Walker's omission, the First Brigade went forward, and the commanding officer and a number
Salem Press. Co., Salem, Ma., 1906.
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