Third Brigade on the left. There was skirmishing during the morning but the heavy fighting did not begin until near four o’clock when a tremendous cannonade opened upon our lines, followed soon after by a cavalry charge. Senator W. V. Allen of Nebraska, then a private in Company G, gives the following graphic account of what followed:
“The cloud of smoke from our guns hung for a moment in the breeze, then rose, revealing to us the sickening sight of riders and horses lying in a promiscuous heap of dead and dying. Their warm life-blood was forming little pools, which uniting, ran away in streams, while the pitiful neighing of dying horses, and the sorrowful cries and appeals of the dying soldiers for help and water was a sight to make the soul sick. While we were contemplating this horrible picture there debouched from the opposite woods three strong lines of infantry, the division of Churchill, Parsons and Majors, with wings spread out like a great fan. Their bayonets were fixed ready for use and they carried their guns at right shoulder shift. It was our time to turn pale. There were two of them to one of us, three strong lines to our single line. They broke forth in the ‘Rebel yell,’ which was simply a cheer from fine voiced men, a high piercing noise like the call of a woman made at long distance. It differed from the cheer of our men, which was heavier, heartier and more uniform. They brushed aside our skirmishers and dropped their guns to the position of a charge. They were to fall upon and crush in our center by the fury of their assault and the machine strength of numbers, while other portions of their army were to envelope, overlap and crush our flanks, and thus rout if not capture our entire army. Their success the previous day had made this, to their minds, not an impossible feat. Banks, always fruitful in blunders, had sent back to Grand Ecore a large part of the Thirteenth Corps and all our cavalry except one brigade, which being roughly handled early in the fight was unfit for offensive service when needed; so that when the enemy struck us in full force with his assaulting columns, we were weakened fully by this reduction of our numbers. We were ordered to shield ourselves as best we could from the enemy’s fire, and reserve our own, until he approached within a few rods of us. The chivalrous Shaw was at his best. His usually dull eye kindled with an unnatural fire, and his unusually homely countenance grew almost beautiful in contemplation of the death struggle that was at hand. He rode along the line giving his orders as coolly as if on dress parade. ‘Aim low, boys; it is better to wound than to kill, for it will take two good men to carry a wounded man from the field,’ he said. Above the din of the gathering storm, again rang out the voice of Shaw as the Rebels approached us.
