enemy opened a blistering fire of shell, canister, grape, and musketry. The first shell thrown by the enemy killed and wounded a number of the blacks; but on they went. "Charge" was the word—
"'Charge!' Trump and drum awoke;
Onward the bondmen broke;
Bayonet and sabre-stroke
Vainly opposed their rush."
At every pace the column was thinned by the falling dead and wounded. The negroes closed up steadily as their comrades fell, and advanced within fifty paces of where the rebels were working a masked battery, situated on a bluff where the guns could sweep the whole field over which the troops must charge. This battery was on the left of the charging line. Another battery of three or four guns commanded the front, and six heavy pieces raked the right of the line as it formed, and enfiladed its flank and rear as it charged on the bluff. It was ascertained that a bayou ran under the bluff where the guns lay—a bayou deeper than a man could ford. This charge was repulsed with severe loss.
Lieutenant-Colonel Finnegas was then ordered to charge, and in a well-dressed, steady line his men went on the double quick down over the field of death. No matter how gallantly the men behaved—no matter how bravely they were led—it was not in the course of things that this gallant brigade should take these works by charge. Yet charge after charge was ordered, and carried out, under all these disasters, with Spartan firmness. Six charges in all were made. Colonel Nelson reported to General Dwight the fearful odds he had to contend with. Says General Dwight,
