Men From Massachusetts

Amid thunder and lightning, the men of Ledlie’s Brigade struggled to survive relentless Confederate rifle and cannon fire across the ravine before them. The low ground offered some cover to the men from Massachusetts, who paid a deadly price for their attack, while the open ground ahead proved impossible to cross and withdrawal meant falling back without orders. When the 12th Mississippi Infantry came over the Confederate earthworks ahead, Ledlie’s soldiers began sprinting back to safety. Lieutenant Colonel Chandler, leading the 57th Massachusetts, stopped Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Weld of the 56th Massachusetts and asked what he would do; Chandler said he would rally his men and try to make a stand, and Weld answered that he would join him. Before they could rally more than sixty men between them, Colonel Merry B. Harris’ men fired a volley from only 40 yards away that swept away the remaining fragments of the Union defense. Chandler fell into the mud, mortally wounded, Weld was wounded in the side, and the Federal survivors ran for the woods behind them as soldiers from Mississippi chased them.

Virginia · United States