Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 5.djvu/72

60 on a wooded bluff, which rose abruptly from a deep ravine. The ravine was filled with sharpshooters, to whom its banks gave great protection. A second line of infantry was stationed on the side of the hill behind a breastwork of trees above the first; a third occupied the crest, strengthened with rifle trenches and crowned with artillery. The approach to this position was over an open plain, about a quarter of a mile wide, commanded by this triple line of fire and swept by the heavy batteries south of the Chickahominy. In front of his center and right the ground was generally open, bounded on the side of our approach by a wood, with dense and tangled under growth and traversed by a sluggish stream which converted the soil into a deep morass.

Old Cold Harbor was in front of the Federal right, and Games mill in front of his right center, the length of his line being about 2 miles and running in a curve from the &quot;wooded bluff&quot; on his left to a swamp on his right. The attack on this position was made by two roads running parallel with the Chickahominy, one going to the Federal left, and the other by Games mill, opposite his right center. Longstreet attacked on the former, and A. P. Hill on the latter, D. H. Hill and Jackson attacking from the direction of the Federal front and right. At 4 p. m. A. P. Hill ordered his whole division forward, and the desperate struggle began, in which every inch of ground was to be won by a great sacrifice of life, and to be disputed with heroic firmness. Gregg, who was first engaged, fought his way through the tangled wood and the boggy morass to the foot of the main position, when, confronted by a determined and, unfaltering resistance, and his lines torn by artillery from the crest in front and by a battery on his right flank, he could make no further progress. Marshall was ordered to take the battery on the right, and advanced gallantly, Perrin’s, Joseph Norton’s, Miller’s and Miles Norton’s companies in front, under Lieutenant-Colonel Ledbetter. The battery was withdrawn, but its support in the woods, composed of a strong body of troops, among them the New York Zouaves,