Death in the Clover

At midday, the members of the 8th New York advanced jauntily across a clover-filled field until, at this point, southern riflemen suddenly rose from thickets behind a fence and unleashed a sheet of fire into their faces. The shocked Germans were cut down as bullets tore into their bodies, and observers on both sides were stunned by the speed and violence of the attack. After only a few volleys from the Confederates, the survivors fled rapidly down the hill, while heavy smoke from gray gunpowder covered the field. When it cleared, the Union advance had been quickly and devastatingly repulsed, and the ground was strewn with dead and wounded men. On the morning after the battle, New York Times correspondent Charles H. Webb found men lying where they had fallen or where they had crawled to die, and he learned that some wounded Germans had been kindly treated during the night by Southern soldiers who covered them with blankets, brought them water, and in some cases washed their wounds.

Virginia · United States