Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 35.djvu/208

194 in retreat to fight with stubborn resistance." And he further remarked "that the men who carried this position were soldiers indeed."

General Fitz John Porter, the Federal commander, says: "As if for a final effort, as the shades of evening were coming upon us and the woods were filled with smoke limiting the view therein to a few yards, the enemy again massed his fresher and reformed regiments and turned them in rapid succession against our thinned and wearied battalions, now almost without ammunition, and with guns so foul that they could not be loaded rapidly. The attacks, though coming like a series of irresistible avalanches, had thus far made no inroads upon our firm and disciplined ranks. Even in this last attack we successfully resisted, driving back our assailants with immense loss, or holding them beyond our lines, except in one instance near the centre of Morrell's line where, by force of numbers and under cover of the smoke of battle, our line was penetrated and broken." Morrell's line of battle was opposite the position carried by the Texas Brigade.

I pass hurriedly to the second battle of Manassas, where the Texas Brigade was again destined to turn the tide of war. It is not necessary to recount how we arrived upon that field, further than to state that the seven-days' battles around Richmond had driven McClellan to seek a new base, and he had taken a boat and gone to the neighborhood of Washington, and Lee was merely seeking him out. Meantime, McClellan had been superseded, and Pope was in command of the army. On the same battlefield which had witnessed the first great shock of arms between the Federal and Confederate forces in 1861 on the 29th of August, 1862, General Pope, with about 150,000 Federal troops, confronted General Lee, in command of about 75,000 Confederates. During the greater part of the 29th a fierce conflict raged between the forces of Jackson, on the Confederate left, and the Federal troops opposite him, but nothing appears to have been gained on either side, except the loss of many lives. The morning of the 30th dawned bright and clear, the atmosphere was heavy, and every man felt that to-day the decisive