Battle of Edge Hill

“ Nevertheless, two of the royal regiments refused to be beaten; falling back upon their guns, they made a stand, probably along the line from Radway to Bullet Hill, and there, reinforced by Rupert’s returning troops, they held their ground, repulsing the Parliamentarian attacks, and so says Fiennes, [PB] “horse and foot stood together against horse and foot [Pg 30] until night, when the Royalists retired up hill.” It is probably from this stage of the fight that Bullet Hill got its name. ”

“ On that day Edgehill, the first great battle of the great civil war, was fought; thirty thousand of the best and bravest of Englishmen were put in array against each other, and on that cold autumn night, as the keen searching wind sighed through the heath and furze and along the unsheltered slopes of Edgehill, darkness closed upon the field of carnage, where five thousand men lay in their death agony—so many sacrifices to the Moloch of intestine strife—without any substantial advantage having been gained by either side. ”

“ The incidents of Edgehill were typical of the whole struggle. On each flank the king's gallant horsemen swept off the Parliamentarian cavalry like chaff before the wind; and a third of the infantry of Essex was also carried away in the disaster. But the reckless Cavaliers, headed by Prince Rupert, were so maddened by the joy of victory, that they rode on for miles, driving the fugitives before them, and gave no thought to the main battle. ”

“ There was hard-won progress on the first day on the bloody slopes of Hill 288, while patrols, pushing ahead, found themselves under cross-fire which could not be withstood. When night came, the units in front were already exhausted in a day of fighting of the most wearing kind. "Attack again!" Wire which was not on artillery maps, swept by machine-gun fire, meant delay, but no repulse. The German resistance was unusually brave and skillful in making the most of positions as vital and well-prepared as they were naturally strong. ”

“ Round the barges gliding onward blushed like blood along their tracks.
So they crossed to the other border, and again they formed in order;
And the boats came back for soldiers, came for soldiers, soldiers still:
The time seemed everlasting to us women faint and fasting,—
At last they're moving, marching, marching proudly up the hill.
We can see the bright steel glancing all along the lines advancing—
Now the front rank fires a volley—they have thrown away their shot;
For behind their earthwork lying, all the balls above them flying,
Our people need not hurry ”

“ Now! the walls they're almost under! scarce a rod the foes asunder!
Not a firelock flashed against them! up the earthwork they will swarm!
But the words have scarce been spoken, when the ominous calm is broken,
And a bellowing crash has emptied all the vengeance of the storm!
So again, with murderous slaughter, pelted backwards to the water,
Fly Pigot's running heroes and the frightened braves of Howe;
And we shout, "At last they're done for, it's their barges they have run for:
They are beaten, beaten, beaten; and the battle's over now!" ”

“ Somebody remarked, “how easy it would be to take that battery, if any of our infantry were in reach.” Just then, we heard loud cheering, which sounded to us, to be up in the woods, on our left, where Hill’s men were. Someone instantly cried out, “There it goes now! Hill’s men are going to take those guns.” We eagerly gathered at the works, some distance to the left of our guns, where we could see better, and stood gazing up at the edge of the field, expecting every moment to see Hill’s troops burst out [Pg 165] of the woods, and rush upon these guns. ”

“ The roar of cannon and musketry from Hill's 5,000 men rang in his ears, and the smoke of battle showed, by its length along the mountain top, how thin must be Hill's stretched-out line and how large must be the force pressing against it. Hill held the "old road," passing through Fox's gap, against Pleasanton's cavalry and Reno's corps, in one of the most desperate of all recorded contests, until the middle of the afternoon, when Hooker's corps, in furious onset, fell on his left near Turner's gap, where the Boonsboro and Frederick road crosses, and added to the fury of the contention. ”

“ We were under direct machine-gun fire and sniping from their posts on the crest of the hill we had to capture. Our blockhouse was continually shelled. The enemy guns had its location to a nicety and kept it under almost constant fire. Twelve men in all were killed at the door at different times during the few days we stayed there.
"In the attack yesterday morning, fifty of our men in the centre were able to make and hold their objective, but the battalion on our right was forced to fall back to the edge of the hill after being exposed to a fire which cut it down to ineffective strength. ”

“ Upon this angle Longstreet's veterans were hurled with determination, while a part of his corps—Hood's fierce fighting Texans, and that most desperate of rowdy corps, Wheat's Louisiana Tigers—passing around the flank of it, made a determined attempt to seize Little Round Top, a position from which, had they secured it, their guns could have swept a large part of the Federal line with a destructive enfilade fire. General Warren saw the danger in time and moved a heavy force toward the coveted hill, including a battery whose guns the men dragged by hand up the steep and into position. ”

“ That battle is a fact. I saw the two armies as plainly as I see you, and when the enemy planted that battery there on the hill, driving our forces away, I was among the troops ordered to charge them as a forlorn hope, and I fell right there, in front of the guns, riddled with canister shot. I was ahead of the line, for some reason, and just as I fell our men were driven back by a counter-charge right over my body. My friend, prevision is possible. Prevision is a fact. The battle, the charge, the counter-charge, and my death, right there, are what we call Future events. ”

“ The first of the lines of entrenchments [539] had been taken, and Longstreet, Hood, Law, and other brave leaders were moving on the last stronghold in the enemy's center, when the victorious shouts of Garland's and G. B. Anderson's Brigades of Hill's Division were followed by the rapid retreat of the enemy and the surrender, first of the ridge at the McGehee house, and then of their whole line. Thus did it fall to the lot of Hill once more to strike the decisive blow at a critical moment. ”

“ The reserve, coming to support their comrades—now forced to the very edge of the plateau—increased the crowd without remedying the disorder. The British volleys rolled on faster and more deadly than ever; a horrid carnage made all attempts to hold the hill vain, and uselessly increased an unavailing slaughter. Unable to bear the withering fire, the shattered columns of the French were no longer able to sustain themselves, the mass were driven over the ridge, and trampling each other down, the shattered column sought refuge at the bottom of the hill. ”

“ The right of the 1st crossing Exermont ravine under enfilade and frontal fire charged into the wooded slopes of the Montrefagne, or Hill 240. Twice that day we had the hill; and twice the Germans, reinforced, surged back and drove us off. [275] Our men were saying that "every Boche who didn't have a machine-gun had a cannon"; for the enemy, realizing the value of every foot of ground, was using roving guns attached to his infantry battalions. ”

“ In the first two days the 26th had suffered 2,000 casualties. On the 27th they were sent into one of those ambitious attacks which look well on paper. To the right of Hill 360, which of course was on the rim, was a valley, and beyond that on higher ground the Moirey Wood, continuing the rim. Relying on veteran experience to carry out this daring maneuver, they were to swing around Hill 360, and into the valley, and take Moirey Wood. ”

“ The real serious point lay in the fact that there was but one path by which the summit of the hill could be reached, and this was only wide enough for one man to pass at a time. It was therefore impossible to send large bodies of troops against the enemy, and there was the terrible danger that sharpshooters might pick off the men one by one as they tried to ascend the path.
The work had, however, to be done, and an English regiment and two troops of native soldiers were sent forward to storm the hill. ”

“ With the aid [221] of tanks two attacks were made on the Ogons Wood beyond Nantillois under the German artillery fire from the whale-back, which was at close quarters and as accurate as the plunging machine-gun fire which accompanied it.
The two tanks, so inadequate for their task, did not go far before both were hit. The infantry came near enough to the Ogons to realize that at the ratio of the increasing resistance our survivors who reached it would be hopelessly unequal to taking the machine-guns firing from its edge. ”

“ On Henry Hill, poignant with memories of the previous year, were now assembled Reynolds’ divisions, Sykes’ regulars, and other available troops. With courage and gallantry that matched the crisis of battle, they hurled back repeated Confederate assaults that continued until dark. The successful defense of Henry Hill made possible Pope’s retreat over 36 Bull Run, by the Stone Bridge and other fords, to the strong defenses of the Centreville plateau. ”

“ To them Jackson replied that he had no further desire to make war, but that peace would not be granted to the nation until Red Eagle—or Weatherford, for by that name only the whites called the Creek commander—should be brought to him bound hand and foot. It was his purpose to hang Red Eagle as a punishment for the massacre of women and children at Fort Mims, he knowing nothing, of course, of the warrior's daring efforts to prevent that bloody butchery, and to make of the affair a battle, not a massacre. ”

“ But they thought that this hill was too steep and rugged to be a danger. No cannon, it was said, could ever be dragged up to the top of it. When the British came, however, they thought otherwise. They at once saw the value of the hill, and determined that guns should be dragged up it. For forty-eight hours they worked furiously, and when day dawned on the 5th of August both men and guns were on the summit.
The American commander, St. Clair, saw them with despair in his heart. Every corner of the fort was commanded by the guns, and the garrison utterly at the mercy of the enemy. ”

“ When he came into Death Valley, he was to know its effects upon men. For two or three miles the road was always under shell-fire. By day visible to the enemy's observers, by night his gunners could be sure that guns registered upon it, if they fired into the darkness, would find a target on its congested reaches. It was inadequate to the traffic of the divisions engaged. Troops marching into battle must run its deadly gamut before they could deploy. ”

“ Its wantonness was never more conspicuously shown forth, than in335 a military operation which had absolutely nothing of glory in it, inasmuch as it involved no battle, no possible risk of encounter with any force, and no enterprise more daring than raids upon barnyards and turnip patches. An army of more than sixty-two thousand men and sixty-five guns, perfectly equipped and utterly unopposed by any force that could even pretend to give battle to it, moved over a space of nearly three hundred miles, making war only upon non-combatants and leaving a blackened path of desolation behind. ”

“ The battle on the Plains of Abraham, which ended French rule on this continent, was fought by Englishmen with only slight American aid, but its consequences to Americans were assuredly momentous. As compared with Gettysburg, or Sedan, or Mukden, Bunker Hill was a mere skirmish, yet its fame is well founded, for it was the first formal stand against the British by an organized American soldiery, and in this and in the fact of American initiative in seizing and fortifying Breed’s Hill, it differed from the hasty gathering of patriots at Lexington and from the brief conflict at Concord Bridge. ”

“ Men were away raiding chicken coops when they should have been in line with guns in their hands. Straggling was general beyond precedent, so that Lee declared that his army was "ruined" by it, while D. H. Hill said in his report of operations that "Had all our stragglers been up McClellan's army would have been completely crushed or annihilated. Thousands of thievish poltroons had kept away from sheer cowardice." ”

“ No need to lay plans too far in advance. Too much can happen in the tick of a second–things that knock plans and the planner into a cocked hat.
Below them now was a far-flung battle of raging intensity. German troops could be seen moving along toward the river, and a little farther inland McGee spotted a long line of infantrymen along a road paralleling the river. But they were moving westward, in the direction of Chateau-Thierry, instead of toward the bridgehead at Dormans. And in addition to the marching men, the road was choked with artillery, caissons, ammunition wagons, and ambulances. ”

“ The enemy fled from this combined assault and retreated down the mountain in great confusion, leaving their dead and wounded and the debacle of their retreat behind them.
Colonel Johnson concluded his official report of this engagement, dated December 19th, by saying: "Although we have reason to be thankful to God for the victory achieved over our enemies on this occasion, we can but lament the loss of many valuable lives. Our casualties amounted to 20 killed, 96 wounded and 28 missing. Many of the missing have returned since the day of battle. ”