line and was heavily engaged. Both of these brigades did steady, hard fighting during all the afternoon as they met the heavy masses of the Second corps. How effective their fire was is shown by a statement made by Col. W. J. Martin of the Eleventh regiment. He says, in his Regimental History: "At one time, during the fighting on the 5th, our regiment lay down behind a line of dead Federals so thick as to form a partial breastwork, showing how stubbornly they had fought and how severely they
had suffered. It was a novel experience, and seems ghastly enough in the retrospect. " As the Federals continued to multiply in Heth’s front, Wilcox s division was withdrawn from the flank and put in to relieve Heth. This brought the brigades of Lane and Scales into the
thickest of the fight. Wilcox assigned Scales and Lane to the right of the road, McGowan to the road and Thomas to his left. "The two brigades on the right," says Humphreys "(Lane’s and Scales’), passed through Heth s lines and advanced at different times as far as the swamps, in and near which they encountered Hancock’s and Getty’s men with varying success, but were finally forced back
to Heth’s position."[1] Lane says in his account of the battle, that his men did not lose ground until they were doubled in on both flanks. Davis brigade, of which the Fifty-fifth North Carolina formed a part, was posted behind a hill crest, and Colonel Cooke says in his Regimental History, "Our line never wavered. About 3:30 our skirmish line was driven in and the first line of the Federal forces charged us, but they got no further than the crest of the hill in front of us, and were repulsed with great loss; from then until sunset they charged us seven times, but we repulsed every attack."
As these troops were to be relieved by Longstreet at daylight, no attempt was made to readjust their tangled lines that night. The jaded men sank to sleep just where
they had been fighting. The two armies were so close
—
- ↑ The Campaign of 1864 and 1865.
