Hand-to-Hand

In 1846, fighting in dense chaparral reduced combat to a confused hand-to-hand struggle in which troops had to clear space with pickaxes just to stand, officers could not locate one another or keep their men in hand because the undergrowth hid everyone except those close enough to touch, tactics could not be used, and the battle became a general free fight from right to left. George Deas recalled that after giving orders to advance and fight, the general could do no more because he could not possibly see his troops, though he remained calm amid the scene. Ulysses Grant remembered bullets whistling thick overhead and cutting limbs from the chaparral while his men, unable to see the enemy, lay down. Edmund Kirby Smith called it a hand-to-hand conflict and a trial of personal strength in which, where the bayonet failed, even fists were used.

Brownsville, Texas · United States