Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/399

1862] with outbuildings and board and rail fences and stone walls. The passage of the canal and the deployment beyond led evidently to our first discovery by the enemy, for, immediately, there was a combined outburst upon us of artillery and musketry fire, with a mighty roar and rattle from the front, right, and left. The fire was converging and shook our column by its suddenness and severity, killing and wounding hundreds. Several shells struck right in the lines, tearing wide gaps in them. But they pushed on over the intervening space and reached the crest mentioned, under the shelter of which the formation was restored as much as possible. Then the skirmishers rushed over the crest, followed by Kimball's and the other brigades, on towards the second heights. They found themselves again exposed to a murderous rain of shot, shell, and bullets, from the front and each flank, but continued on with fixed bayonets and without stopping to fire, despite the constant thinning out of their ranks. They made their way for a thousand feet or so over rough and muddy ground and over fences, walls and other obstacles, when they found themselves within a short distance of the enemy's first line, along a ravine from which they received such a hail of bullets from rebel infantry in rifle-pits and behind a high stone wall, covering their front for nearly a mile, and such showers of grape-shot from field-pieces and from guns in position in earthworks on the heights a thousand feet to the rear of the wall, that they staggered and halted and in part lay down for shelter in the unevennesses of the ground. The skirmishers and Kimball's first brigade were the first thus brought to bay; the latter after losing one-fourth of their number, including their commander, who was badly wounded. Some time passed before the other brigades, also rather disordered by the hindrances described and decimated by rebel fire, came up to support. The lines of the three brigades became mixed into one. Numbers sought safety in retreat without orders, the remainder holding the position gained, but making no