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STURGIS'S ASSAULT
Another shell exploded directly in front of a
Massachusetts regiment, knocking down the whole color guard except the
sergeant who carried Old Glory. . .
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Orlando B. Willcox waited at the lower end of town with the Federal
Ninth Corps. Willcox had seen no progress on the center or right, and he
mistook the movement of the two North Carolina regiments for an attack
on Couch's left, so he sent forward Samuel Sturgis's division, one
brigade at a time. Like those that went before, the first brigade met
artillery fire the instant it emerged from the city. Green recruits in a
new regiment gasped when a shell took one man's head off, showering them
with jets of blood. Another shell exploded directly in front of a
Massachusetts regiment, knocking down the whole color guard except the
sergeant who carried Old Glory; after the blast he still stood, dazed
and helpless in the acrid sulphur haze, clasping the flag to his breast
with the bleeding stumps of his forearms.
The man who took the staff from the handless sergeant was himself
killed in a few moments, as was the one who took it from him.
His first brigade failed to gain any ground, so Sturgis swung his second
one even farther to the left, increasing the length of open ground it
would have to cover and bringing it within range of guns along the
Confederate center. Beyond the railroad tracks sat a knoll cloven for
another set of tracks that had never been finished, and when the front
rank reached that cut it tumbled in. There it stayed in apparent safety,
but the cut pointed like an arrow toward General Lee's command post,
where squatted a 30-pounder Parrott rifle. This long-range gun started
tossing shells into the cut, and frantic Union officers pushed, ordered,
and begged their men to abandon that false refuge. The second rank
also fell into that trap, and Longstreet's artillery chief positioned a
battery of Napoleons to rake the man-made ravine. Finally the shelling
drove the last of Sturgis's men out, and they pressed on toward the
stone wall. A few regiments in this second brigade did manage to work
their way around the bend in the Telegraph Road, technically flanking
the Georgians and Carolinians in the Sunken Road, but the steep slope
neutralized their firepower.
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ANDREW HUMPHREYS LED HIS PENNSYLVANIA DIVISION AGAINST THE
WALL IN ONE OF THE FINAL ATTACKS OF THE DAY. ALTHOUGH
APPROACHING TO WITHIN ONE HUNDRED YARDS OF THE WALL,
HUMPHREYS WAS DRIVEN BACK, ADDING AN ADDITIONAL 1,000
NAMES TO THE MOUNTING CASUALTY ROLLS.
(LC)
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