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Updated: May 19, 2025
Night was approaching, and the country on the farther side of the railroad was densely wooded. General Stanley had come up on the left of Davis, and was deploying, though there could not have been on his front more than a skirmish-line.
Armitage with Company B covers the advance, and his men are strung out in long skirmish-line across the trail wherever the ground is sufficiently open to admit of deployment. Where it is not, they spring ahead and explore every point where Indian may lurk, and render ambuscade of the main column impossible.
Hammond was mostly with Steele; Sanger sent to McClernand, and McCoy, myself, and John Taylor were with you and Stuart. At about half-past three I got your permission to go to Giles Smith's skirmish-line, and, thinking I saw evidence of the enemy weakening, I hurried back to you and reported my observations.
They would go into fire because duty said, "Save the country!" and when, soon after, the steeply-sloping angle of the enemy's works came into view, ominously red in the morning light, and crowned with smoke and fire, while the air hummed about our ears as if swarming with angry bees, and this one and that one fell, there was scarcely one who, as he pulled his cap close down and pushed ahead in the skirmish-line, was not thinking of duty.
All this was done in the darkness, and while we were working away at our cover the enemy could be distinctly heard from our skirmish-line giving commands and making preparations to attack. Just after daylight on the 1st of June the Confederate infantry under General Kershaw endeavored to drive us out, advancing against my right from the Bethesda Church road.
Our two corps first drove the enemy back and occupied the ridge, and for awhile held this advantage, until the whole rebel army, save a skirmish-line, was withdrawn from the right and center, and concentrated on and against our right. It looked as though the contest was now to be continued only on this part of the line. Farlin was now in line on the left of Mausker.
All this was done in the darkness, and while we were working away at our cover the enemy could be distinctly heard from our skirmish-line giving commands and making preparations to attack. Just after daylight on the 1st of June the Confederate infantry under General Kershaw endeavored to drive us out, advancing against my right from the Bethesda Church road.
A skirmish-line in thickets or clumps of chaparral on the ground might have been driven back as our army advanced, and thus our rear would have been all the time secure from attack; but a skirmish-line hidden in tree-tops was as dangerous to the rear as to the front, and a soldier pressing forward toward what he supposed to be the enemy's position was just as likely to get a Mauser bullet in his back as in his breast.
She struggled to speak, but she found herself in the predicament of one who has used up all ammunition on the skirmish-line, and comes helpless to the battle. She simply could think of nothing adequate to say. She stared at her husband while he stared out of the window. Then she gave it up. "Draw up your chair!" she said sharply. "I guess ye got to eat, whatever ye be!"
They had proceeded but a short distance into the woods when a sharp command, "Halt," was heard from the skirmish-line of the rebels. Without heeding the command, General McPherson and his party wheeled their horses, and at that moment a heavy volley was poured in, killing McPherson and so frightening the horses that they became unmanageable and plunged into the underbrush in different directions.
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