Stowe; the Twenty-second, Maj. C. C. Cole; the Thirty-fourth, Col. R. H. Riddick, and the Thirty-eighth, Captain McLaughlin; Latham’s battery, Lieut J. R. Potts, and Reilly s battery, Capt. James Reilly.
On the morning of the 29th, Jackson was in position along the line of an unfinished railroad, and Longstreet, having passed Thoroughfare gap, was marching in haste to reunite the two armies. Jackson’s line extended from near Groveton, on the Warrenton pike, almost to Sudley’s Springs. His own division held his right, Ewell the center, and A. P. Hill the left. In Sigel’s morning attack on Jackson’s right, an attack which made little impression, no North Carolina troops were under fire. However, in the afternoon, the Union forces, showing a pertinacity and heroism rarely equaled, rushed continuously against Jackson s obstinate Southerners. The puzzled Federals had been searching for Jackson, and now that they had found him, they wanted to end the search. In their repeated assaults, the Carolinians and their comrades on the left found foes of their own mettle. Hooker and Kearny and Reno were ordered to advance simultaneously against Jackson’s center and left. Grover, of Hooker’s division, however, led his five regiments into battle ahead of Kearny, and made one of the most brilliant charges of the war. He succeeded in crowding into a gap between Gregg s and Thomas brigades, and reached the railroad. There he was fiercely driven back, and lost 486 men in about twenty minutes. So close was the fighting that bayonets and clubbed muskets were actually used.[1] The dashing Kearny, aided by Stevens, next fell on Hill’s left. Branch’s and Pender’s North Carolinians and Early’s Virginians had moved up to reinforce the front lines, and for some time the line of battle swayed forward and backward. General Jackson had ordered his brigade commanders not to advance much to the front of the railroad, and so they never pressed their
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- ↑ Grover’s Report.
