Hopeless Attacks

During a ferocious assault, soldiers advanced under devastating musketry fire in what one participant called a mad enterprise ordered despite the danger. Elliott Grabill of the 5th United States Colored Troops recalled that his regiment melted under the fire and fell back sullenly, too exhausted and too proud to run. A Confederate artillerist likewise remembered that the attackers fought well, coming forward at a double quick, leaping into the ditch, and helping one another up the parapet even as many were shot down on the edge.

Virginia · United States