Stewart's Attack

Wedged between Donelson’s and Maney’s brigades, Stewart’s Confederates continued their advance and drove back the two Union infantry regiments that initially held this area. From the second ridge ahead, Union captain Samuel Harris’ artillery battery fired into the advancing Southern line, and the field soon filled with wounded, dead, and dying. Stewart’s regiments eventually intermingled with other Confederate units and pressed toward the battery. Although the Union troops on the ridge made a strong stand, they were overwhelmed and the battery was overrun. By dark, the Confederates had pushed the Federal soldiers past the ridges in front, but with sunlight fading Stewart’s command ran out of ammunition and withdrew. His timely arrival on the battlefield helped ensure a Confederate tactical victory. A Union soldier of the 79th Pennsylvania Infantry recalled that in one hour and three-quarters his regiment lost two hundred and eleven men, and that his company went into the fight with forty-three men and came out with eighteen, after twenty-five were wounded and killed; he himself was shot through the left leg about two inches below the knee.

Kentucky · United States