REAR-GUARD FIGHTING DURING THE CHANGE OF BASE. 373

started to make a call upon General Heintzelman, whose supposed positionhas already been described. As we rode over the open field we saw a groupof men come out of a wood on the north of the railroad, but some distancefrom the place where we expected to find Heintzelman. I thought they wereour men, but General Sedgwick looked at them more closely, stopped, andexclaimed: “ Why, those men are rebels! ” We then turned back in as dig-nified a manner as the circumstances would permit. But we had hardlystarted when they opened on us with a field-piece, keeping up a lively anduncomfortable fire. A second piece soon joined the first, and they kept up thefire until they were silenced by our batteries. This ludicrous incident pre-vented what might have been a disastrous surprise for our whole force. Afew minutes afterward, before we had reached our troops, the signal-officersreported the approach of a force of infantry and a railroad car upon whichwas a rifled cannon, from the direction of Richmond. This artillery carhalted in a cut of the railroad a little distance in front of the station, andat once began to shell the troops in the open field, and so about 5 o’clockthe fight was begun. I immediately sought General Sumner, to informhim of the situation and get instructions. He had been fighting at thehead of his corps during the morning [at the peach orchard], and, beingmuch exhausted, was asleep when I reached his headquarters. I awokehim, and in a short time he had ordered two regiments of General Burns’sbrigade to attack at a point in the timber in front near the Williams-burg road, where the enemy’s infantry had by this time appeared. Theseregiments entered the wood, and before they became engaged were joinedby the 1st Minnesota Regiment. General Burns extended his line to thevicinity of the railroad, so that its center was necessarily weak. Duringthis movement the enemy’s artillery played with effect upon our troops,but was answered and finally silenced by the three batteries on our sidealready mentioned.

The enemy made the infantry attack with great fury, and pierced the cen-ter of General Burns’s line. General Burns was wounded, but remained on thefield. At this time General Sumner placed himself in front of two regimentsand waved his hat. With a cheer they moved forward at double time to theendangered place in General Burns’s line, enabling him to rectify it and drive* the enemy from his front. Several other regiments joined General Burns’sline at about the same time, but the fight was over not long after the charge,and the enemy was driven from the wood. A Confederate battery placed nearthe Williamsburg road was compelled to withdraw in haste. On the left Gen-eral Brooks’s brigade of General Smith’s division, Sixth Corps, moved forward,with its right on the Williamsburg road, against a force of the enemy thatwas moving south of that road in the wood skirting the open field. It steadilydrove back the enemy, meeting with heavy loss, particularly in the 5th Ver-mont Regiment. Darkness ended the fight. General Brooks was woundedin the leg, but did not leave the field. Hancock’s and Davidson’s brigades[Smith’s division] were posted some distance to the rear to repel an antici-pated attack from the right and rear, but were not engaged. When the fight