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Assailed in front and flank by a destructive fire, the Pennsylvanians were rapidly borne back. Hill's second line joined in Early's advance. Gibbon was strongly attacked. Six brigades, sweeping forward from the forest, dashed down the slopes, and in a few moments the broken remnants of the Federal divisions were dispersing in panic across the plain.
The capture of Fort Duquesne was the first thing planned. Over forty-five hundred men were raised in South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia; Joseph Forbes commanded them as brigadier-general; Washington led the Virginians; John Armstrong and the boy, Anthony Wayne, were with the Pennsylvanians.
My Indians on either flank advanced to the picket line, and squatted there, paying no heed to the challenge of the sentinels, until Boyd was obliged to go forward and satisfy the sullen Pennsylvania soldiery on duty there. He came back in his graceful, swinging stride, chewing a twig of black-birch, his thumbs hooked in his belt, damning all Pennsylvanians for surly dogs.
Across the dry ploughed land in Lawton's front the fight grew hot, and on the far side of the turnpike the meadows round the Nicodemus Farm became the scene of a desperate struggle. Meade's Pennsylvanians, together with the Indiana and Wisconsin regiments, which had wrought such havoc in Jackson's ranks at Grovetown, were once more bearing down upon his line.
More than seventy widows were in the weeping company. The only large family that was saved in its entirety was that of the Carters, of Philadelphia. Contrasting with this remarkable salvage of wealthy Pennsylvanians was the sleeping eleven-months-old baby of the Allisons, whose father, mother and sister went down to death after it and its nurse had been placed in a life-boat.
Stonewall Jackson was not down the river; Stonewall Jackson was here! Meade's Pennsylvanians were gallant fighters; but they broke beneath that withering fire, they fell back in strong disorder. Grey and blue, North and South, there were gathered upon and above the field of Fredericksburg four hundred guns. All came into action.
But on the arrival of the Pennsylvanians we made forced marches towards James River, and on our gaining the South Anna we found Lord Cornwallis encamped some miles below the point of Fork. A stolen march through a difficult road gave us a position upon Michunk Creek, between the enemy and our magazines, where, agreeable to appointment, we were joined by a body of riflemen.
Though this was the easiest method, yet the danger from Indians was so very great that most immigrants, the Pennsylvanians as well as the Marylanders, Virginians, and North Carolinians, usually went overland by the Wilderness Road. This was the trace marked out by Boon, which to the present day remains a monument to his skill as a practical surveyor and engineer.
It is only necessary to state here, that Colonel Burr, on that occasion, was ranked among the supporters of Lee, and had himself real or imaginary cause of complaint against the commander-in-chief. In this action Colonel Burr commanded a brigade in the division of Lord Stirling, composed of his own regiment and some Pennsylvanians, under the immediate command of Lieutenant-colonel Dummer.
Thar's them five hundred Pennsylvanians that went out in June, under old Cunnel Crawford from Pittsburg, agin the brutes of Sandusky, war more ridiculously whipped by old Captain Pipe, the Delaware, thar's no denying." "What!" said Roland, "was Crawford's company beaten?"
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