Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/391

1862] deployed along the bank to cover the boats with their rifles. The daring venture was preceded by another tremendous outburst of our artillery, lasting half an hour. While it continued, boats were to be pushed into the river, manned by officers and men of the regiment named, and rowed over as fast as possible. But the engineers who were to push the boats skulked off again at the first rebel fire. The Michigan men, under Colonel Baxter, promptly assumed their part and shoved and carried the boats into the water. Six started off first, filled with less than one hundred men. Our batteries became silent, and on our side all eyes were anxiously fixed upon the small flotilla. There was great risk of a failure, as there were not enough experienced oarsmen to handle the boats, and as the force in them was small. The rebels sent a shower of bullets, killing one man and seriously wounding the Colonel and several others. But the other bank was reached, and the party formed quickly under it and then rushed up the first street, and in a few minutes had captured some thirty rebels and established themselves in a building after losing another officer and more men. This achievement was one of the bravest feats of the whole war. The remainder of the Michigan regiment and the Nineteenth Massachusetts followed in boats as rapidly as possible. As they forced their way into the town, there was some street fighting, but our men, spreading to right and left, soon had the loopholed buildings along the bank cleared of all rebels. The engineers could not be induced to resume the bridge work until our men had secured a foothold, when they took hold again, and by four o'clock the upper bridge was at last completed.

At the three other bridges to be thrown by the volunteer engineers, a similar experience was had. The enemy foiled successive efforts to lay them by his severe musketry fire, which inflicted, however, but slight losses. The second and third could not be completed until, as at the upper bridge, one of the covering regiments, the Eighty-ninth New York,