and keeping his left flank upon the Long Bridge road, until he arrived near the edge of the wood, within three hundred yards of the enemy's batteries. Here a hot exchange of fire began with a battery and the Federal infantry drawn up in the wood and in a gully in rear of the guns, and a temporary halt was made while Chapman's battery (of three guns) was brought up; but it was hardly unlimbered before it was crippled and driven off. Nothing daunted by the overwhelming force in his front, Colonel Jenkins then ordered a charge, which was at once executed, with the utmost gallantry and success, capturing the battery (Cooper's), killing its horses, and turning its guns upon the enemy, and driving the infantry from their position and pursuing beyond it. This success, however, was obtained at a heavy sacrifice, and the force left in ranks was so reduced that the advance of the enemy's second line drove it back and retook the battery, the survivors falling back into the wood from which they had advanced, where a portion of them were rallied by Lieutenant-Colonel Steadman, of the Sixth South Carolina, and afterward joined in the charge of Wilcox's brigade.
Jenkins' brigade took into this charge 1,106 men, of whom 562 were killed or wounded and 27 captured.[1]
On the repulse of Jenkins, Wilcox and Pryor, who were about being stretched out to the left to connect with Huger (who was still expected), were now ordered to attack directly in front. The brigades were formed in line, Pryor upon the left, and commenced their advance—Wilcox's centre resting on the Long Bridge road. Dense pine thickets entirely obstructed the view on the left of the road, and so interfered with the advance, that they could only be passed by breaking "by companies to the front." Gaining at length the edge of an open field, the enemy's line was discovered by Pryor's brigade, also in the edge of a wood, their right being brought by it obliquely forward. Both parties immediately opened all of their muskets upon each other, and an indecisive but bloody conflict ensued. Featherston's brigade was advanced to Pryor's support, and took ground on his left, and shortly afterwards, General Featherston being wounded, and his brigade and Pryor's badly cut up, Gregg's brigade of A. P. Hill's division was also
- ↑ The losses in Jenkins' own regiment, the Palmetto Sharpshooters, were perhaps never exceeded in the war in so short an affair—amounting to 44 killed and 210 wounded out of 375 engaged. Captain Kilpatrick's company had but one man left untouched, and two other companies but three each. Colonel Jenkins himself bore the marks of ten bullets on his person, horse and accoutrements.
