ed high, and many of the shells ploughed the ground in our
rear or burst about our hospitals. The First division was pressing
toward the rebel works at double quick, under a terrible fire of
musketry and artillery, the boys with the red crosses pushing everything
before them. They neared the rebel works, and the skirmishers along the
whole line threw themselves upon the ground waiting for the line of
battle to come up. The rebel skirmishers did the same. Each moment the
scene became more exciting. Rebel infantry crowded the opposite side of
the plain, the slopes of the hills and the rifle pits. The whole line
was ablaze with the fire of musketry, and the roar of battle constantly
increased.

At length, toward evening, the rebels having been driven back to the
cover of their rifle pits, the Third brigade of the First division,
consisting of the Sixth Maine, the Fifth Wisconsin, the Forty-ninth and
One Hundred and Nineteenth Pennsylvania, regiments whose fame already
stood high in the army, was ordered forward.

First the Maine and Wisconsin regiments rushed forward, the intrepid
Russell riding at the very front. At his order to "charge," the two
regiments quickened their pace to a run, and, with bayonets fixed,
without ever stopping to fire a gun, the gallant fellows ran forward.
They seized the fort, but the rebels rallied and drove them out. Again
they charged; a hand to hand encounter followed. The boys leaped over
into the fort, using their muskets for clubs, and, when the work was too
close for that, dropping their guns and pommeling their adversaries with
their fists. The general had sent back for the remaining regiments of
the brigade, but, in the ten minutes that elapsed before the
Pennsylvanians could come up on a run, half the men of the Sixth Maine,
and nearly as many of the Wisconsin regiment, had fallen. The whole
brigade leaped over the embankments, capturing hundreds of the rebels.

Not less gallant was the charge of the Second brigade, led by the young,
ambitious Colonel Upton. His regiments were the One Hundred and
Twenty-first New York, his own, the Fifth Maine, and the Ninety-fifth
and Ninety-sixth Pennsylvania. The brigade occupied the left of the
Sixth corps, joining the Fifth corps. Under cover of the growing
darkness, the courageous Upton led the One Hundred and Twenty-first New
York and Fifth Maine within a few yards of the rebel rifle pits, when
the order to charge was given. Instantly the rifl