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power could have accomplished. Thus, nine Confederate regiments not only unflinchingly held their position, but had piled the very front of it with heaps of Federal dead.
THE GRAND ASSAl'I.T.
At the same hour of i in the afternoon, Burnside had ordered a grand assault of 60,000 men upon Jackson's right, thus hoping by a simultaneous right-hand and left-hand assault to break through Lee's right, and gain one of the two highways that led to Richmond. A. P. Hill's first line of battle was broken, but Jackson, promptly in- formed of this assault, rode headlong to his right, and hurling Early and Taliaferro upon the now forward-rushing Federals, drove back their division in great disorder.
Near the middle of the afternoon a fourth assault was made upon Marye's Heights. This met the same fate as the previous three, and 1,000 were soon added to the dead and dying alreadly covering the foot of these heights.
Stung almost to madness, and chafing under his almost total de- feat, Burnside, against the advice of Hooker, ordered a fifth assault upon Marye's Heights, but a fiery sheet of shot, shell, and mus- ketry met them as they approached the stone fence, and another thousand fell in the same undertaking in which their predecessors had so significantly failed. The task imposed upon them was be- yond the reach of human accomplishment; but we can only admire the bravery exhibited by these Federal soldiers in their heroic at- tempt to capture these Heights.
From three different army corps 30,000 men had been hurled against 7,000 Georgians and Carolinians, but had been successfully driven back, and their front strewn with nearly 9,000 dead and wounded, while not a Federal soldier had touched the wall, so bravely held.
FUTURE CONFLICT ABANDONED.
On the 1 5th, Burnside desired to renew his attack upon Lee's right, but he found all his subordinates bitterly opposed, and he abandoned the future conflict, and at the first opportunity, during a storm on that night, he recrossed the Rappahannock, leaving behind him nearly 13,000 dead and wounded. Lee's loss was about 5,000, mainly on his right, where Jackson had fought outside of his slight breastworks. Fifty thousand Federals had been actively engaged in opposition to 20,000 Confederates.
