Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/496

 both sides. At their first onset, the noble Colonel Peissner of the One Hundred and Nineteenth New York dropped dead from his horse, but Lieutenant-Colonel Lockman held his men bravely together. My old revolutionary friend, Colonel Hecker of the Eighty-second Illinois, who had grasped the colors of his regiment to lead it in a bayonet charge, was also struck down, wounded by a rebel bullet, and was taken behind the front. Major Rolshausen, who promptly took command of the regiment, met the same fate. A multitude of our dead and wounded strewed the field. But in spite of the rain of bullets coming from front, right, and left, these regiments held their ground long enough to fire from twenty to thirty rounds.

On my extreme right, separated from the line just described by a wide gap, which I had no forces to fill, things took a similar course. A short time after the first attack a good many men of Colonel Gilsa's and General McLean's wrecked regiments came in disorder out of the woods. A heavy rebel force followed them closely with triumphant yells and a rapid fire. The Fifty-eighth New York, a very small regiment, and the Twenty-sixth Wisconsin received them firmly. Captain Braun, in temporary command of the Fifty-eighth New York, was one of the first to fall, mortally wounded. The regiment, exposed to flanking fire from the left, where the enemy broke through, and most severely pressed in front, was pushed back after a desperate struggle of several minutes. The Twenty-sixth Wisconsin, a young regiment that had never been under fire, maintained the hopeless contest for a considerable time with splendid gallantry. It did not fall back until I ordered it to do so. Colonel Krzyzanowski, the brigade commander, who was with it, asked for immediate reinforcements, as the Twenty-sixth Wisconsin, being nearly enveloped on all sides, could not possibly maintain its position longer. Not having