Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 4.djvu/95

Rh icsville and Beaver Dam. In spite of a constantly erroneous statement of numbers, this engagement was be tween four brigades (not counting brigades present, but not materially engaged) of Fitz John Porter, and five brigades of A. P. Hill, assisted just before dusk by Ripley’s brigade of D. H. Hill’s division. Gregg’s and Branch’s brigades, of A. P. Hill’s, took no part in the assault on the fortified lines, being otherwise engaged. The plan of the battle was for Jackson to strike the right flank of the Federal intrenchments, while A. P. Hill attacked in front. Jackson was, however, unavoidably delayed, and A. P. Hill, not waiting for his co-operation, attacked impetuously in front. Later in the war the troops on both sides learned to have great respect for intrenched positions; but, as has been said, &quot;we were lavish of blood in those early days, and an attack on a battery or a strongly-fortified line was deemed especially glorious. Pender’s North Carolina brigade, made up of the Sixteenth, Twenty-second, Thirty-fourth and Thirty-eighth and two battalions of other troops, advanced, as the division commander says, &quot;gallantly in the face of a murderous fire&quot; to the right of Field s advanced brigade. Under Pender s personal direction, Col. W. J. Hoke, of the Thirty-eighth, and Col. R. H. Riddick, of the Thirty-fourth North Carolina, joined in a desperate but &quot;abortive effort to force a crossing. In this daring advance the Thirty-fourth was outstripped by the Thirty-eighth, and that regiment alone tenaciously fought its way close up to the Federal rifle-pits, furnishing a magnificent yet fruitless exhibition of bravery. Of this attack Judge Montgomery says: "Pender and his brave Carolinians swept over the plain and down the bottom, under a murderous fire of artillery and musketry, to the brink of the creek; nothing could live under that fire. President Davis, who was on the field, seeing the charge and the terrible repulse, ordered Gen. D. H. Hill to send one of his brigades to Pender’s assistance, and Ripley’s was