“the grandest sean of all”

Beginning just after 4:00 pm and continuing into darkness, Confederate infantry made repeated assaults up these gentle slopes, in several places coming within point-blank range of the Union lines. This ground was held by Gen. Charles Griffin’s brigade, with regiments from New York, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. Earlier in the day his men had supported the artillery and suffered light casualties, but with the setting sun they were ordered to move forward through the guns and meet the attack. Late in the afternoon, troops commanded by Gen. John B. Magruder rushed forward in hopes of silencing the deadly accurate Union guns, and their effort culminated in a brief but bloody struggle against Griffin’s infantry. Sulfurous battle smoke clouded the field as the two lines converged at such close range that it was impossible to miss, and one Union survivor recalled, “We murdered them by the hundreds,” while Capt. Marshall Chapin of the 4th Michigan Infantry remembered the rebels charging back on the 9th Massachusetts and following them into the Union lines before a devastating volley cut them down.

Virginia · United States