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[63]
in the rear.
Belgian missives and Minnie balls lent their aid to this scene of surpassing grandeur and sublimity.
Amid all our gallant troops in front pressed on to victory, now cheered by the rapid fire of friends on their left, as they had been encouraged in their advance by the gallant brigades on the right, commanded by Generals Wright and Mahone. Nevertheless, the enemy from his strong position and great numbers, resisted stoutly the onset of our heroic bands, and bringing into action his heavy reserves, some of our men were compelled to fall back.
They were easily rallied, however, and led again with fury to the attack.
The noble, accomplished, and gallant Harrison, commander of the Charles City Troop, uniting his exertions with my own, rallied regiment after regiment, and, leading one of them to the front, fell pierced with seven wounds, near the enemies batteries.’
General Wright says:
At 4:45 o'clock I received an order from General Magruder, through Captain Henry Bryan, one of his staff, to advance immediately and charge the enemy's batteries. No other troops had yet come upon the field. I ordered my men forward, and springing before them led my brigade, less than one thousand men, against a force I knew to be superior in the ratio of at least twenty to one. Onward we pressed, warmly and strongly supported by General Mahone's brigade, under a murderous fire of shot, shell, cannister, and musketry. At every step my brave men fell around me, but the survivors passed on until we had reached a hollow about three hundred yards from the enemy's batteries on the right. Here I perceived that a strong force of infantry had been sent forward on our left by the enemy with a view of flanking and cutting us off from our support, now more than one thousand yards in our rear. I immediately threw the left of the Third Georgia regiment a little back along the upper margin of the hollow, and suddenly changing (the) front of this regiment, poured a galling fire upon the enemy, which he returned with spirit, aided by a fearful direct cross fire from his batteries. Here the contest raged with varying success for more than three-quarters of an hour; finally the line of the enemy was broken and he gave way in great disorder.General Mahone says:
The brigade, although prompt in moving to the position assigned it, and in doing which was exposed to the fire of the enemy's sharpshooters, adroitly posted behind wheat shocks in the valley on our right, had not gotten into place when the order came from General Magruder, who, I presume, supposed all was ready with us, that the charge assigned to our forces (General Wright's brigade and my own) should be made. It was now 5 P. M.
