Men collapsed into the high, wet grass, the dirt starting to chum up, more men losing shoes, some dropping rifles when a comrade in the front rank two feet ahead came slamming back into them. Flags dropped, for always it was the flag bearers who were special targets. Within seconds, though, eager hands grabbed the colors, hoisting them back up.
"Close on the colors! Keep moving, men! For God's sake keep moving!"
To some the assault might appear to be an exercise in madness, men advancing shoulder to shoulder against a deadly fire, standing erect, out in the open… and yet there was a terrible cold logic to it all, the idea of bringing a maximum number of men, in a close compact line, into effective combat range, and then either charge over the opponent with fixed bayonets or drive him back by concentrated musketry. The hard part was to keep the men moving, to keep them moving forward and not let the charge grind to a halt out in the middle of the field.
"On the double, quick time… march!"
The pace accelerated, from 110 yards a minute to twice that. Start it too early and the men would be winded when the climatic moment came, a fine equation balanced against how many would fall getting there at the slower pace.
The forward line surged ahead, those drummer boys allowed to go in on the advance, beating out the tattoo, officers waving swords, flag bearers setting the pace, the steady rulerlike line now beginning to break apart into thirty-two inverted V formations, each regiment closing in on their colors with the flags at the apex, flanks lagging a bit behind.
'Take aim!"
In places the range was down to 30 yards. Over on the right, with Slocum's brigades, the men were still 150 yards short of the enemy line.
"Fire!"
More fell, the charge staggering from the blow, collapsing bodies tumbling into the second line, men tangling up, flags going down.
Finally the tension was too much, and as in nearly every charge, the momentum began to slow. The enemy was so close that in the swirling smoke individual features could be seen, an officer, filled with battle madness, standing atop the low parapet, old men with graying beards standing alongside fresh-faced boys, all of them tearing cartridges, loading.
One of Zook's regiments came to a halt, a few men raising their rifles, firing, and then in seconds the entire Union front, spread across that open plain, leveled rifles and fired, the volley an explosive tearing roar that raced up and down the line, drawn out for long seconds, the shock wave from the discharge thumping across the fields, the sound of it mingling in with Henry's cannons, which had resumed their bombardment, the artillery fire aimed high to pass over the advancing lines and strike the crest of the hill.
Another thunder was adding in as well. The first of the replacement batteries reoccupying the bastions of Poague and Cabell were swinging into action. Gunners unhooking the trail of their pieces from caissons, manhandling the one-ton weapons forward, pulling aside bodies, smashed caissons, and in more than one case simply pulling the gun up and over the prone body of a dead horse. The first of the guns recoiled, throwing case shot down into the third wave of troops, who were still on the downward slope.
The Confederates in the forward trench went into independent fire at will, men loading furiously, barely aiming, just pointing into the clouds of smoke, some trying to sight on the flash of a rifle discharging in the gloom. More than a few loaded, forgot to cap the nipple, pulling the trigger then grounding their weapon and pushing another load in. A tragic few, after doing this half a dozen times, would successfully cap and when they squeezed the trigger, the breech of the gun burst, blinding or killing the man behind it
A searing fire raced up and down the lines, men firing individually, some officers maintaining company volleys, a couple of regiments firing all at once, these volleys of three to four hundred rifles at once a sharp crack above the rolling cacophony. Upward of twelve thousand rifle balls were crisscrossing the held every minute.
Logic would seem to dictate that after a minute no one would be left alive, and yet for each volley of a hundred fired, maybe only three or five rounds would find their target. Rifles were aimed too high or too low; smoke covered the field so that it was rare to clearly see what one was shooting at A strange illusion was created with the high grass. Rifle balls, aimed low, would come zinging through the grass, a line of stalks leaping into the air with its passage, the streak racing straight at a man, sometimes passing between his legs, as if a deadly invisible snake were flying past
Bodies dropped on both sides, men collapsing into the muddy bottom of the Confederate trench, Union troops falling in the grass.
One of Brooke's regiments went into a mad charge, bayonets leveled, racing across the last hundred yards, emerging out of the gloom, Confederates to both sides pouring in a ghastly enfilade that dropped a hundred or more before the battered remnant swarmed up the low, mud slick bluff delineating the end of the flood plain, clawing their way up onto the parapet of the shallow trench. Some of the Confederates gave back a few dozen feet; others leapt down, clubbed muskets raised, men rolling down the embankment kicking, gouging, stabbing.
The charge broke, a final melee ensuing when a dozen Rebs tried to tackle the flag bearer and drag the colors away from him. Retreating men turned, surged back, clubbing and stabbing, physically dragging the dying flag bearer out of the melee.
This action finally broke the deadlock. It was the men
themselves to either flank of the dying regiment that started
to scream out a single word
"Charge! Charge!"
That strange, almost indefinable moment in a battle was occurring when morale surged for some reason, and men, rooted to a spot only a minute before, knowing that to take but one step forward would mean death, began to move, as if shoved into the maelstrom by the hand of some angry god of war desiring more blood.
A wild frenzy took hold, men screaming, lowering weapons, bayonets flashing, here and there two or three beginning to go forward again, in other places entire regiments advancing, keeping formation.
The dam broke.
The Confederate infantry, deployed up on the ridge, had so far remained silent, ordered to hold their fire; but some, unable to stand the strain, stood up, aimed down into the valley, and opened up. The artillery was still aiming across the valley to strike at the second or third line or Sedgwick's heavy brigades. Eighteen-thousand men strong who were in reserve and halfway down the slope began to crank up their elevation gears, raising the breeches of their guns, dropping the muzzles in anticipation of what was coming.
The brunt of the storm hit the muddy embankment, men floundering, falling, getting back up, sergeants and corporals physically pushing men up the slope. The assault wave broke into the line three hundred yards to the west of the mill, drowning it under in a wave of blue. The breach spread, like an old rag disintegrating as it was torn asunder.
Many of the Confederates backed out of the shallow trench, turned, and started scrambling up the slope to the main line. Some stayed; many died; many others dropped weapons, holding hands high, and for some the gesture was too late as they were shot or bayoneted in the wild frenzy.
The small bastion thrown up around the ruins of the mill and miller's house continued to hold. Its eastern flank was guarded by the millpond, the regiment that made up the extreme left of the Union attack stalled by the shallow, open body of water, the soldiers there simply kneeling and lying down along the bank to pour in supporting fire. The bridge below the mill had been destroyed during the night. The stream here had banks steep enough to offer a barrier and cover, so that the men who struck it stopped on the opposite shore, trapped in the narrow defile, while from thirty yards away the rebels inside the rough-built earthworks poured out a continual blaze of fire, dropping any man who dared to try and stand up and push forward.