l of the
contest, on a scale of magnificence seldom if ever witnessed by any army
before. This was destined to be a day of most fearful carnage, and
desperate attempts on the part of each antagonist to crush the other by
the weight of its terrible charges.

Active skirmishing commenced along different portions of the line early
in the morning, and continued to grow more and more general until the
rattle of the skirmishers' rifles grew into the reverberating roll of
battle. From one end of the long line to the other the tide of battle
surged, the musketry continually increasing in volume, until it seemed
one continuous peal of thunder. During all the battles in the
Wilderness, artillery had been useless, except when here and there a
section could be brought in to command the roadway; but now all the
artillery on both sides was brought into the work. It was the terrible
cannonading of Malvern Hill with the fierce musketry of Gaines' Mills
combined, that seemed fairly to shake the earth and skies. Never during
the war had the two armies made such gigantic struggles for the
destruction of each other.

At first the heavy assaults were made against the right wing--Hancock's
and Warren's corps sustaining the principal shock of the enemy's
repeated charges. Massing their forces against particular points of the
line held by these two corps, the rebel generals would hurl their gray
legions like an avalanche against our breastworks, hoping by the very
momentum of the charge to break through our lines; but a most withering
storm of leaden and iron hail would set the mass wavering, and finally
send it back to the cover of the woods and earthworks in confusion,
leaving the ground covered at each time with an additional layer of
their dead. In turn, the men of the Fifth and Second corps would charge
upon their adversaries, and in turn they too would be forced to seek
shelter behind their rifle pits. Thus the tide of battle along the right
of the line rolled to and fro, while the horrid din of musketry and
artillery rose and swelled as the storm grew fiercer.

Meanwhile the Sixth and Ninth corps were quietly awaiting events, and it
was not until six o'clock in the afternoon that the Sixth corps was
called into action. Then it was to make one of the most notable charges
on record.

At five o'clock the men of the corps were ordered to unsling knapsacks
and divest themselves of every incumbrance preparatory to a charge.
Colonel Upton