Dead Horse Hill

Crescent-shaped earthworks protected the 14 guns of Lieutenant Colonel Reuben Lindsey Walker's artillery battalion on this position on December 13, 1862. Before Union infantry assaulted, artillery swept the hilltop with savage fire, killing so many artillery horses that local residents nicknamed the ridge Dead Horse Hill. During the bombardment, battery commander Captain Willie Pegram struggled to keep his men at their work as several abandoned their guns and fled to the woods behind the position. To inspire them, Pegram wrapped himself in a Confederate flag and walked calmly among the deserted cannon, and his men soon returned. One Confederate artilleryman recalled that the trees around the guns were torn to pieces, the ground was plowed up, and dirt was repeatedly knocked into his eyes and mouth.

Virginia · United States