Page:A narrative of service with the Third Wisconsin Infantry.djvu/76

 wished to put in a division at that point. This was all that prevented us from assaulting a position with about a hundred and fifty men, which a few minutes later Sedgwick's Division, with five or six thousand, failed to carry.

We moved back out of the corn-field to our old position, and immediately after Sedgwick's Division came in from the northeast. As they moved forward in perfect line to the attack, they presented a splendid sight, even to old soldiers, and we had little doubt that they would sweep everything before them. They marched in three parallel lines, one behind the other, and about seventy-five yards apart. The brigade and field officers, aware of the peculiar danger of being on horseback in such a place, all marched with their men on foot. The only mounted officer in the entire division was old General Sumner himself, who rode a little in the rear of his first line. He was then nearly seventy years of age, perfectly grey but still proudly erect. As he stretched his tall form to its full height on his horse, in order to see what might be in front of his men, he was the most conspicuous object on the field, and