Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 5.djvu/57

Rh ing. The battle which followed, accordingly, on the 5th, fulfilled the general’s expectations, and was a bloody engagement, continuing at intervals from early morning until near dark, the two divisions (Longstreet s under Anderson and D. H. Hill’s) repelling the assaults of thirty-three regiments of infantry, six batteries of artillery, and three regiments of cavalry.

The battle in front of Williamsburg was fought in terrible weather, the whole country flooded by the rains, the roads almost impassable for artillery, and the troops &quot;wading in mud and slush,&quot; as General Hill expressed it. On the morning of the 5th, Longstreet held the forts and line in front of Williamsburg. Anderson s South Carolina brigade, commanded by Col. Micah Jenkins, was stationed in Fort Magruder, and in the redoubts and breastworks to the right and left of the fort. This brigade was composed of the Palmetto sharpshooters, Lieut. -Col. Joseph Walker; Fourth battalion, Maj. C. S. Mattison; Fifth, Col. John R. Giles, and Sixth, Col. John Bratton, Lieut.-Col. J. M. Steedman.

The position at Fort Magruder was the center of Longstreet’s line and was the point at which the battle opened at 6 o’clock in the morning. Major Mattison, commanding the pickets in front of Fort Magruder, was sharply engaged, and being reinforced by a battalion of the sharpshooters, had quite a picket battle before retiring to the fort. The attack on Fort Magruder and on the redoubts and breastworks to the right and left of it, was at once opened with artillery and infantry, and the superiority of the Federal artillery and small-arms put Jenkins command at great disadvantage. But the artillery in the fort and the redoubts was so well directed, the gallant gunners stood so heroically to their guns, and were so firmly supported by the Carolina infantry, that the Federal columns could not assault the line, and were driven back and compelled by noon to change the point of attack further to the Confederate left. Mean-