582

GORDON’S ATTACK AT FORT STEDMAN.

loading the muskets, while those with sound handsstood to the parapets and "blazed away. The fore-most assailants recoiled and scattered. The Con-federate forts opposite us gave a response morefierce than ever, and a body of sharp-shootersposted within easy range sent us showers ofmimes. The air was full of shells, and on glan-cing up one saw, as it were, a flock of blackbirdswith blazing tails beating about in a gale. At firstthe shells did not explode. Their fuses were toolong, so they fell intact, and the fires went out.Sometimes they rolled about like foot-balls, orbounded along the parapet and landed in thewatery ditch. But when at last the Confederategunners got the range, their shots became mur-derous. We held the battalion flag in the centerof the right parapet, and a shell aimed there ex-ploded on the mark. A sergeant of the colorcompany was hoisted bodily into the air by theconcussion. Strange to say, he was unharmed, buttwo of his fellow-soldiers, Sergeant Thomas Hun-ton and Corjooral Stanford Bigelow, were killed,and the commandant, Houghton, who stood nearthe flag, was prostrated with a shattered thigh.This was all the work of one shell. Before ourcommander could be removed, a second shellwounded him in the head and in, the hand.

The charging column was now well up theslope, and Captain Woerner aided our musketsby some well-directed case-shot. Each checkon this column by our effective firing was a spurto the Confederates at a distance to increase theirfire upon us. They poured in solid and case shot,and had twelve Coehorn mortar-batteries sendingup bombs, and of these Fort Haskell receivedits complement. Lieutenant Julius 0. Tuerk, ofWoerner’s battery, had an arm tom off by a shellwhile he was sighting that angle gun. CaptainWoerner relieved him, and mounted the gun-car-riage, glass in hand, to fix a more destructive range.He then left the piece with a corporal, the highestsubordinate fit for duty, with instruction to con-tinue working it on the elevation just set, whilehe himself went to prepare another gun for closerquarters. The corporal leaped upon the gun-sta-ging and was brained by a bullet before he couldfire a shot. The Confederate column was preceded,as usual, by sharp-shooters, and these, using theblock-houses of the cantonments along the trenchesfor shelter, succeeded in getting their bulletsinto the fort, and also in gaining command of ourrear sally-port. All of our outside supports hadbeen driven off, and we were virtually surrounded.The flag-pole had been shot away, and the postcolors were down. To make matters still worse,one of our own batteries, a long range siege-workaway back on the bluff near the railroad, began to

% A message to this effect was taken to one of thedistant siege batteries, with the request to fire upon us.The commandant refused.—G. L. K.

I George M. Buck, 20 th Michigan Volunteers, sendsns the following concerning the action on the right ofFort Stedman:

“ Between Forts Stedman and McGilvery [see map, p. 538]there was an earth-work know'll to tile troops investingPetersburg as Battery IX. It was occupied during the clos-ing weeks of the siege by the 20th Michigan Infantry, two

toss shell into the fort. We were isolated, as allcould see; our flag was from time to time depressedbelow the ramparts, or if floating was envelopedin smoke; we were reserving our little stock of am-munition for the last emergency, the hand-to-handstruggle that seemed inevitable. The rear batteriesinterpreted the situation with us as a sign thatHaskell had yielded, or was about to yield.

Our leader at Haskell, Captain Houghton, waspermanently disabled, but Major Randall’had comeinto the fort soon after Houghton fell. With themen of the Stedman battalion who had reached us,he now joined in the defense. When the fire fromour rear batteries became serious, Major Randallcalled for a volunteer guard to sally with the col-ors, in rear of the fort, to show the troops behindus that Haskell was still holding on. Our color-bearer, Robert Kiley, and eight men responded.Randall led the way along the narrow bridge-stringers over the moat (the planks having beenremoved to prevent a sudden rush of the enemy)and the flag was waved several times in the facesof the Confederates, who hung about the rear ofthe fort, and who opened fire upon the colors.Four of the guard were hit, one being mortallywounded, but the fire from our rear batteriesceased.

The ranks of the enemy soon broke under the fireof our muskets and Woerner’s well-aimed guns,but some of the boldest came within speakingdistance and hailed ns to surrender. The mainbody hung back beyond canister range near theravine at the base of the slope, but within rangeof our bullets. Captain Woerner at last held hisfire, having three pieces on the north front loadedwith grape. Suddenly a great number of littleparties or squads, of three to six men each, rosewith a yell from their hidings down along thoseconnecting parapets, and dashed toward us. Theparapets joined on to the fort, and upon these theConfederates leaped, intending thus to scale ourwalls. But Woerner had anticipated this; the rearangle embrasure had been contrived for the emer-gency, and he let go his grape. Some of the squadswere cut down, others ran off to cover, and not a fewpassed on beyond our right wall to the rear of thework and out of reach of the guns. With this theaggressive spirit of that famous movement meltedaway forever.

To Gordon, the dashing leader of the sortie, itwas now no longer a question of forging ahead, butof getting back out of the net into which he hadplunged in the darkness. The way of retreat wasback over the ridge in front of Stedman. This wasswept by tw-o withering fires, for Fort Haskell com-manded the southern slope of the ridge, and Bat-tery IX 4- and Fort McGilvery the northern. With

Sima nf Batteries C and I, 5tli United states Artillery,andthree Coehorn mortars served hy Company K, 1st Connecti-cut Heavy Artillery, with the 2d Michigan Intantry in th eritle-jiits immediately to the left. Both of these regimentsbelonged to the Second Brigade, of Willcox’s division, com-manded by Colonel ttalph Fly. Between Battery IX a ,l(Fort McGilvery ran the City Point and Petersburg road. 011the morning of March 25tli, before daybreak, the soldiers 0the 2d and 20th Michigan learned that Fort Stedman was inthe hands of the enemy, and the former retired within Bat-tery IX, and with the 20tli Michigan and the two guns of tk e