hat Sherman was engaged,
he ordered Augur forward. Augur, as has been said, had been ready
and waiting all day. His arrangements were to make the attack with
Chapin's brigade, deployed across the Plains Store road, and to
support it with Dudley's, held in reserve under cover of one of
the high and thick hedges of the Osage orange that crossed and
divided the fields on the right of the road. Chapin's front was
covered by the skirmishers of the 21st Maine; immediately in their
rear were to march the storming column of two hundred volunteers,
under Lieutenant-Colonel O'Brien, of the 48th Massachusetts. The
stormers rested and waited for the word in the point of the wood
on the left of the Plains Store road, nearly opposite the position
of battery 13. Half their number carried cotton bags and fascines
to fill the ditch. On the right of the road the 116th New York
was deployed; on its left the 49th Massachusetts, closely supported
by the 48th Massachusetts, the 2d Louisiana, of Dudley's brigade,
and the reserve of the 21st Maine.

O'Brien shook hands with the officer who brought him the last order,
and, turning to his men, who were lying or sitting near by, some
on their cotton bags, others on the ground, said in the coolest
and most business-like manner: "Pick up your bundles, and come
on!" The movement of the stormers was the signal for the whole
line. A truly magnificent sight was the advance of these battalions,
with their colors flying and borne sturdily toward the front; yet
not for long. Hardly had the movement begun when the whole force
--officers, men, colors, stormers, and all,--found themselves
inextricably entangled in the dense abatis under a fierce and
continuous discharge of musketry and a withering cross-fire of
artillery. Besides the field-pieces bearing directly down the
road, two 24-pounders poured upon their flank a storm of missiles
of all sorts, with fragments of railway bars and broken chains for
grape, and rusty nails and the rakings of the scrap-heap for
canister. No part of the column ever passed beyond the abatis,
nor was it even possible to extricate the troops in any order
without greatly adding to the list of casualties, already of a
fearful length. Banks was all for putting Dudley over the open
ground directly in his front, but, before any thing could be done,
came the bad news from the left, and at last it was clear to the
most persistent that the day was miserably lost. When,