Page:Journal history of the Twenty-ninth Ohio veteran volunteers, 1861-1865.djvu/124

 *tained the shock of twenty times our number. The sharp rattle of musketry, the loud roar of Bundy's guns, and the defiant shouts of the combatants, in close hand to hand conflict, can never be erased from the tablets of memory while life shall last. It was grandly, awfully terrible.

A dense smoke settled around the battery and enclosing the extreme left of the regiment, hid the position of our right. Suddenly firing begins on us from our rear. The cannoniers are disabled and the infantry are called upon to work the guns, which were instantly turned to the rear upon heavy masses of rebels advancing from the woods on our flank. The greater part of our regiment had discovered this movement in time to change front to rear, but were instantly forced back by the overwhelming numbers of the rebels, and those in charge of the battery were instantly surrounded by a powerful mob of yelling fiends. Still the double-shotted guns continue to belch forth fire and death, cutting great gaps in the ranks of the enemy at each discharge.

At the guns' front, with muskets clubbed, a hand to hand conflict was had, to allow the reloading of the guns. The situation was now most desperate. A cordon of the enemy hemmed in the brave band, now reduced to but seventy men, whose ammunition was exhausted, and at last they were forced to surrender the battery. Henry Rood, of company A, and Henry E. Clark, company B, are the only names the writer has been able to secure of those captured at this time.

General Geary came up soon after, charged the enemy and recovered the battery, which was instantly turned upon the rebels, causing great destruction. The prisoners were, however, too far in the rear for recapture. and they were conveyed to that loathsome earthly hell, Ander