The Battle of Glendale

by Douglas Crenshaw

  Cadmus Wilcox. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

  After making their way across the stream and through the brush, Confederates marched up a slight rise for some distance and reached more open ground. The enemy was posted in the woods to the left of the field and, according to Wilcox, “opened a brisk and close fire upon the regiment of my line.” As the Confederates reached the open area, the first thing the Federals saw were the tips of their flags and then slowly, step by step, the flags themselves. The 4th Pennsylvania Reserves lay hidden in the tall grass, waiting until the enemy approached within sixty yards, and then the order was given “to rise and fire.” Sergeant James Chester remembered, “We were ready for the onslaught…the guns were double charged with canister… Napoleon guns at canister-range are impregnable, if properly served.” A deadly fire was poured into the attackers. The 8th Alabama halted and returned fire. Colonel Albert Magilton, commanding the 4th Pennsylvania Reserves, remembered that his fire forced the Confederates back, but it was quickly returned, driving the 4th rearward. The 8th Alabama continued moving toward the guns, but Randol kept up his deadly fire. Magilton rallied his men, and the seesaw struggle continued, as the combined power of the battery and infantry once again drove off the attackers. Again the Confederates re-formed and charged. Randol said that his guns, combined with firing from Thompson’s six cannons, inflicted “great slaughter” on the attackers. Joined by the fire of the 4th, 7th and 11th Pennsylvania Reserves, the Federals held Randol’s battery for the moment.132

  Alanson Randol. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

  To its right, the 11th Alabama reached the open area, which was a space of about three hundred yards to its front. About one hundred yards to the north of the road stood the home of Isaac Sykes, and about two hundred yards beyond that was Randol’s battery, with a clear field of fire. The 11th Alabama advanced into the open field and was in plain view of Randol’s guns. It received punishing fire: “This battery began at once a rapid discharge of grape and canister upon this regiment.” The 11th advanced to within two hundred yards of the enemy cannons, “gave loud cheers, and then rushed for the guns.” Randol’s guns responded by tearing fearful gaps in the attackers. At one hundred yards, the Alabamians halted for a moment and aimed a “well directed fire” into the battery and the troops behind it. They then continued their rush toward Randol’s position, but the defenders were pouring fierce fire into their front and their flank.133

  Randol was firing canister into the Alabamians and remembered how they “came boldly on, notwithstanding the frightful havoc made among them.” The fire from Randol’s guns swept a channel of death through the mass of men, but they continued on. Federal fire threw them back. Randol’s infantry supports rose to countercharge, and Randol cautioned them that if they “were obliged to fall back, they should at once unmask my fire by returning by the flanks of the battery.” They indeed charged but were driven back by the Confederates, who continued their attack. The chaos and panic of battle caused them to forget their training and Randol’s instructions. Albert Magilton of the 4th Pennsylvania Reserves said, “Finally my regiment broke and scattered in the woods.” General McCall even made an attempt in vain to rally them. As they retreated, the Federal infantry supports ran directly at the battery instead of retreating by the flank, and Randol said, “I in vain endeavored to make them unmask my fire.” He was unable to shoot his lethal canister at the onrushing Confederates, and suddenly the attackers were among his guns. Randol ordered the Napoleons to be taken to the rear, but the attackers had shot thirty-eight of his horses. Thompson’s battery of Kearny’s division was on Randol’s right rear, in line with his limber chests, firing at the attackers. The combination of that fire and the number of horses wounded or killed made it impossible for Randol to get his guns out. He ordered the limbers to be driven to the rear and saved. By the time he collected his battery in the rear, Randol found that he had lost six guns, four caissons, two limbers and forty-six horses.134

  Among the soldiers killed was Samuel W. Lascomb of the 7th Pennsylvania Reserves. Of his death another veteran wrote, “The death pallor began to gather on his face, but he fixed his glazing eyes upon the colors and said ‘I die happy.’” Lascomb was among so many killed this day. The same veteran remarked, “His brave young heart ceased to beat, and he a corpse on the battlefield…there was no one so true to his country and its flag.” Sadly, the same could be said for so many men that day.135

  The 11th Alabama had suffered dearly in taking the guns and was not about to submit to enemy efforts to retake them. Federals were “under the cover of trees on our left flank and directly in our front, confident and bold in their superior strength.” Randol rallied some men, and they rose and attempted to regain the battery. Wilcox’s men held their ground “with a determination and courage unsurpassed.” Officers and men engaged “in the most desperate personal conflicts with the enemy. The sword and bayonet were freely used.” Charlie McNeill of Company D mounted one of the guns, waving the colors aloft, but was immediately shot. His nephew, William McNeill of A Company, tried to reach him but was killed before he could. Later, Charlie McNeil was found lying on the ground, pierced through the heart by a bayonet, and his flag was gone.136

  One Confederate officer, Captain Walter Parker, felled two Union officers with his sword and then “was seriously wounded, receiving two bayonet wounds in the breast and one in his side and a musket wound breaking his left thigh.”137

  Lieutenant T.J. Michie of Company E was fighting man-to-man with a Union captain:

  After receiving a ball from the captain’s pistol in the right arm, a sword thrust in the cheek, and a cut which laid bare the skull bone on the crown of his head, Lieut. Mickey made a desperate thrust with his bright and flashing sword which penetrated and passed through the body of the gallant captain, who staggered back and in a moment fell a lifeless corpse.

  Michie fell, “cut over the head with a sabre-bayonet from behind, and afterward three bayonet wounds in the face and two in the breast…which he survived for three days.” Soon the Federals troops attacked, and more bitter hand-to-hand combat ensued. “Few shots were fired…combatants stood breathless, face to face and foot to foot, with locked bayonets.” Each man feared to release the lock “lest the other should gain the advantage.” Officers climbed on the guns to rally their men, amid the storm of violence and death “unparalleled in the history of the rebellion.” Randol rallied Company B of the 4th and some other scattered Federal troops, joined by the 7th Pennsylvania Reserves, and was able to drive the 11th Alabama back from the guns. Edmund DeWitt Patterson remembered that the fight “raged in all its fury around and above me—men ran over me, balls knocked dirt in my eyes.” At any moment he feared that “a bullet might make my ‘quietus’ for me.” As the 11th Alabama pulled back, “the great flag of some Pennsylvania regiment dragged across my face as I lay in the dust.” The Alabamians continued to the wood line to the west, where they joined the 9th and 10th. Moving to the rear, William McIntosh of Company A took cover behind a tree. A Union soldier saw him and lunged at him with a bayonet, but “a puff of smoke from McIntosh’s Enfield, and the Irishman’s brains moistened the already crimson soil.” Pennsylvanian Henderson Howard took on four Confederates, bayoneting two, shooting one and running the other off. Charles Shambaugh went to get his regiment’s colors back. He struggled in among the mêlée and was able to grab the flagstaff. Returning to his own lines, he said, “I go-go-got the d-damned thing.” The desperate fighting continued, but the Federal weight was beginning to tell. Failing to receive adequate support to hold the captured guns, Wilcox bitterly wrote, “It was a wrong inflicted upon that gallant little regiment to have left it unprotected at such a time.” After driving Wilcox back, Randol saw even more Confederate troops approaching. The battle for the cannons was to continue. Neither side had the strength to hold the guns.138

  A few days later, the wounded General Meade wrote a letter to Randol, summing up the situatio
n very well:

  I am aware, and shall so state, that everything that could be done by men similarly situated was done by yourself and command to repel the enemy and save your battery. I am also aware, and shall so state, that the loss of your battery was due to the failure of the infantry supports to maintain that firm and determined front which I should have expected from my men had not their morale been impaired by the fatigues incident to previous battles, constant marches, loss of rest and want of food, exhaustion their physical energies to such a degree that they were not able to withstand the desperate and determined onslaught of overwhelming numbers.

  Add to this the heat, terror and total confusion of the day, and it is amazing that the men of either side functioned as bravely as they did.139

  During the desperate action, the common soldier was not the only one to become a casualty. The very competent Meade was trying to keep his men organized when he was hit with musket fire twice; one ball hit him in the forearm, and the other entered just above his hip and went out close to his spine. Unable to continue the fight, he rode to the rear. The Union had lost yet another field commander, one of its best.140

  Chapter 11

  KEARNY HOLDS ON

  To the right of Randol was the division commanded by Phil Kearny. One of the Army of the Potomac’s finest division commanders, Kearny was also one of its bravest—to a fault. He had fought with the French cavalry in the 1840s. In the American war with Mexico, he was wounded in his left arm, which had to be amputated. Following that conflict, Kearny returned to France and fought with the Imperial Guard of Emperor Napoleon III at Magenta and Solferino. Courage was something he demanded of his soldiers. General Winfield Scott called him “the bravest and most perfect soldier.” Kearny hated cowardice, and perhaps most galling of all to him was the loss of an artillery piece during a fight.141

  Kearny’s division stretched from Randol’s flank and reached out to touch Slocum’s left at the Charles City Road. John Robinson’s brigade was posted on the left, reaching out toward Meade. It was anchored by Thompson’s battery. Robinson had the 63rd Pennsylvania on the left, the 57th Pennsylvania in the center and the 20th Indiana on his right. He kept the 105th Pennsylvania as his reserve. David Birney’s brigade extended Robinson’s flank to the Charles City Road, and Hiram Berry’s brigade was held as a division reserve.142

  Longstreet’s string of uncoordinated attacks continued. Jenkins and Kemper had not attacked together, and Branch was late to support Kemper. Wilcox’s attack was not well coordinated with Jenkins. Longstreet ordered Roger Pryor’s brigade forward in support of Wilcox. Pryor’s brigade consisted of the 14th Alabama, 2nd Florida, 1st Louisiana Battalion, 14th Louisiana and the 3rd Virginia. Although Pryor responded immediately, unfortunately for the Confederates the “wood and other obstructions” in front of his troops made movement difficult; he was forced to advance in column and send his regiments forward in succession rather than being able to mass an attack. The 14th Alabama went in first. As Pryor advanced toward Robinson’s brigade, Wilcox’s initial assault was being repulsed, so all available fire from the flank and the front was shifted to Pryor’s men.143

  Kearny wrote that Pryor’s attack was launched with a “vigor and in such masses as I had never witnessed.” It approached Lieutenant Pardon Jastram’s section of Randolph’s battery. Not very experienced, Jastram had trouble deciding where to fire. He also couldn’t see to his front, as smoke covered the ground. Jastram received orders to “fire towards the sun.” He ordered case shot with two-second fuses to be loaded, but one of his gunners loaded canister, which had to be fired in the air, as Jastram could not tell if his own troops were in his front. Adding to his troubles, he had only three men serving each piece. He fired through the blinding smoke and, after five rounds, noticed the men on his left (McCall’s) pulling out. Soon the Federal troops to his front began falling back among his guns, and Jastram could no longer service them. He heard an officer shout for him to get his guns out. Fearing being captured, he decided to pull back but could not pull one of his cannons out, and it was spiked. Kearny would be contemptuous of Jastram’s decision to withdraw his guns.144

  Thompson’s battery, however, was handled skillfully in defense. When Pryor’s men were about 400 yards out, Thompson opened on them with spherical case shot. The Confederates “advanced in line, stooping down and firing.” As they approached to within 150 yards, Thompson blasted them with double canister and “literally swept the slightly-falling open space with the completest execution.” The attackers were mowed down by ranks and would pause momentarily, but soon they would be joined by supports and “increased masses came up and the wave bore on.” Thompson’s guns were tearing great gaps in the approaching line. When Thompson’s canister supply was expended, he switched to cutting the fuses short on spherical case shot, which would cause the shells to explode almost immediately after being fired from the guns. This was extremely risky, as there was the great danger that the shells would explode prematurely, killing the crews serving the guns. Despite the risk, desperate times called for desperate measures. One shell took out half a dozen men of the 14th Louisiana. The 14th quickly lost 243 men of the 900 it began the attack with. One company entered the action with 42 men, but “only nine men came out without bullets in their hides.” Pryor said that the 14th Alabama was “nearly annihilated.” Even the innocent suffered: Pryor’s horse became a casualty when its leg was blown off.145

  In support, Colonel Alexander Hays advanced the 63rd Pennsylvania and the 37th New York Volunteers, and they blazed away at the approaching Confederates. Thompson told Hays that his guns were almost out of ammunition, and he needed help to cover the artillery. Hays ordered the 63rd Pennsylvania Volunteers forward. His men “sprang to their feet,” advancing with bayonets. “The conflict was short, but most desperate, especially around the buildings of the R. Sykes farm. It was muzzle to muzzle, and the powder actually burned the faces of the opposing men.”146

  New Jersey Brigade rushes to the aid of Kearny. From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated History of the Civil War.

  Kearny commended Hays’s regiment, stating, “The Sixty-third has won for Pennsylvania the laurels of fame.” The attackers who had survived the terror and carnage of the canister now faced the volleys of Hays’s rifles. On Hays’s right, the 20th Indiana “behaved with the greatest coolness… cracking jokes, loading and firing as if at a target.” A member of that unit, A.J. Castater, said that General Kearny was sitting on his horse not 20 feet away,” exhorting his men to not be afraid of the shelling—“just then a shell burst over us and a small piece of it hit the General in the breast without doing him any injury. He remarked that it was evident that the enemy would as soon hit a fellow as not, and rode down the line.” The men of the 57th Pennsylvania fired as many as 150 rounds each, and John Robinson sent word to Berry to bring up reinforcements. His troops advanced in support, and the 2nd Michigan moved up to help the 20th Indiana. The 3rd Michigan went to support David Birney’s brigade, on Robinson’s right. The Confederates were temporarily repulsed but would not be denied so quickly. Thompson’s gunners were firing so quickly that they did not take time to sponge the guns, increasing the slaughter but also raising the risk to his own crews.147

  “Kearny’s Men” by Alfred Waud. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

  Thompson’s guns finally expended all of their ammunition and withdrew from the field. He was able to pull five of his cannons and all of his caissons to safety. One gun was damaged and could not be pulled out, as some of its horses had been killed, so it was spiked and abandoned. In his report, Kearny lauded the performance of Thompson’s battery for “the rapidity and precision of fire and coolness amid great loss of men and horses.”148

  Longstreet’s final brigade, Winfield Featherson’s undersized unit, consisted of the 12th and 19th Mississippi and the 2nd Mississippi Battalion. Arriving on Pryor’s left, Featherston found himself on the extreme left end of the Confederate line. His men advanced to a f
ence, where they opened fire. The enemy returned “a well-directed fire” into his ranks, and Featherston sensed that they might attack his flank. Fearing that, he immediately sent word to Longstreet to send reinforcements. Having a small command (down to 250 men), he decided to wait for more troops. Featherston was soon hit in his shoulder and had to leave the field. All of Longstreet’s troops had now been committed to battle. Without support from Huger on his left, he faced the possibility of being flanked by Kearny’s division. A.P. Hill’s division was sent in.149

  A.P. Hill. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

  Maxcy Gregg’s brigade moved to the Confederate far left flank, and Gregg directed Colonel Samuel McGowan to form his lead regiment, the 14th South Carolina, and move forward through thick undergrowth to determine the position and strength of the enemy. He was heading toward Robinson’s brigade of Kearny’s division. Some of his men were sent ahead as skirmishers and, after advancing some three hundred yards, came upon the wounded Featherston, who warned them that the enemy was all around and that troops should be brought forward at once. McGowan ordered his regiment forward “through a perfect jungle of vines and bushes.” They approached Federal skirmishers, who had been behind some hastily created breastworks and drove them off. He halted his regiment at a clearing and fired “volley after volley.” The Federals of the 20th Indiana refused to retreat. They constructed a makeshift breastwork of logs and fence rails and returned “a very hot and fatal fire.” Having picked up extra cartridges, some of McGowan’s men fired as many as seventy rounds. McGowan remembered that after dark the firing slowed, and enemy officer approached the lines, asking what unit they were. He then demanded to know what unit the officer was from, to which was replied the 20th Indiana. The Confederate colonel replied that they were from the 14th South Carolina and had the Federal officer escorted to the rear. In a few moments, they heard a command from across the field: “Commence firing!” The line blazed. The Federals “poured into the regiment for a short time the most destructive fire. We, however, held our ground and returned the fire until the enemy fled.” The Union troops made one attempt to turn Gregg’s flank, but Lieutenant Colonel Simpson directed fire at them and pushed the attackers back. The shooting continued for some time until it finally faded out. Gregg’s 13th South Carolina was beside the 14th but could not fire safely owing to the terrain and general confusion. The men fixed bayonets and prepared to attack but never received that order.150