At three o'clock in the afternoon, Howard's division advanced to the attack, to be hurled back before the overwhelming fire of the rebels. Only a brief time is now left before darkness will cover the scene. A final desperate effort must be made to take the heights. Supported by the batteries in the streets, a fresh division advances into the field. We can look into the faces of the men as they come on.
Nothing apparently can withstand their onset.
They come steadily to within a few paces of where we lie. Then bursts forth from the rebel works an iron tempest which had scarcely a parallel even on that day. Showers of bullets went whistling by or struck the ground in every direction, while pieces of shell, bits of old iron, grape and canister, rained down with a dull sound as they hit the earth. Arrested in its course, the line wavers, fires a few volleys, then scatters like chaff. It was now about dusk, and many of the Twenty-seventh who had remained on the field after the withdrawal of our division, retired into the city.