SUMNER’S “RIGHT GRAND DIVISION.”

"5

should take his cue from me. Butterfield also gave Humphreys orders tothat effect. After a lull in the battle General Caldwell, a brigade commanderunder Hancock, sent word to the latter that the enemy were retreatingh’om Marye’s house. It was probably only a shifting of the enemy’s troopstor the relief of the front line. But, assuming that the report was true,t said, “ General Humphreys, Hancock reports the enemy is falling back;now is the time for you to go in! ” He was ready, and his troops aroundhim were ready. The order had evidently been expected, and after aninterval of more than twenty-five years I well recollect the grim deter-mination which settled on the face of that gallant hero when he receivedthe words, “ Now is the time for you to go in ! ” Spurring to his work hehfi his two brigades, who charged over precisely the same ground, butU r ho did not get quite so near to the stone-wall as some of French ’s andHancock’s men. |

The musketry fire was very heavy, and the artillery fire was simply terrible.I sent word several times to our artillery on the right of Falmouth that theyU’ere firing into us, and were tearing our own men to pieces. I thought theyhad made a mistake in the range. But I learned later that the fire camefr‘°m the guns of the enemy on their extreme left.

Soon after 4 o’clock, or about sunset, while Humphreys was at work, Getty’sdivision of Willcox’s corps was ordered to the charge on our left by the unfin-ls hed railroad. I could see them being dreadfully cut up, although theyhad not advanced as far as our men. I determined to send a battery uponHe plain to shell the line that was doing them so much harm; so I orderedat| aide to tell Colonel Morgan to send a battery across the canal and plant itUe ar the brick house. Morgan came to me and said: “ General, a batteryCau ’t live there.” I replied, “ Then it must die there! ”

Hazard took his battery out in gallant style and opened fire on the enemy’sHies to the left of the Marye House. Men never fought more gallantly, and heHst a great many men and horses. When Hooker came he ordered Frank’sbattery to join Hazard. But this last effort did not last long. In the midstH it I rode to the brick house, accompanied by Colonel Francis A. Walker ,lieutenant Cushing, and my orderly, Long. The smoke lay so thick that wec °uld not see the enemy, and I think they could not see us, but we were aware

1 Lieutenant-Colonel Carswell McClellan, As-jj ant Adjutant-General, serving on GeneralJmphreys’s staff at Fredericksburg, writes to tlie'irtr s correct a statement made in Walker ’s^History of the Second Army Corps ” [p. 181], asU as by other writers, implying that the chargeHumphreys’s division was supported by Sykes.°lonel McClellan says:

"Wldivision had not crossed the RappahannockH cn General Humphreys's first assault was made, andjv "Cad ot liis column reached the bridge crossingi a , "Ill-race on the Telegraph road, only after ther e charge made by General Humphreys had beenll8 "<l. General Sykes’s First and Second Brigadesrelieved the troops upon the advancedtjj 011 the Telegraph road, and experienced one ofh'ost trying tours of duty exacted from troops

during the war. His Third Brigade remained massedin Fredericksburg during the night of December 13th-14th.”

Noticing, also, the denials of General Walker andothers that General Humphreys’s men approached“nearer to the wall than any other troops hadreached,” Colonel McClellan cites the fact thatGeneral Humphreys, who made this statement,was an eye-witness of the scene from his positionin front of his division, while on the other hand theofficers of the burial-parties sent out a week later(whose evidence has been relied on to support theopposite view) could hardly have identified the menof the different commands, because nearly all thebodies had in the meantime been stripped of theirclothing.— Editors.