On July 1 at Malvern Hill, whose narrow crest was barely 900 yards wide, the Union army could place only a small number of its nearly 200 available cannon, so the defenders positioned between two and three dozen artillery pieces across the hill and waited. When Confederate artillery appeared on opposite fields, the better-posted Union cannon blasted it into silence, then turned on attacking Confederate infantry, firing with devastating accuracy into unprotected masses charging up the hill’s gentle slope. Charles A. Phillips of the 5th Massachusetts Light Artillery recalled that as soon as the attackers emerged from the woods, Union artillery opened on them with terrible effect, filling the air with smoke from bursting shells, tearing up the ground with fragments, and creating widening gaps in their ranks before they were halfway across the field. During the afternoon, one battery on the crest fired 1,392 rounds from its six cannon, showing the remarkable intensity along the entire Union line.