Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1862-05-16


tally of the exhaustion of the supply of
ammunition by the supporting infantry
regiments behind them. Here now COM
menced the development of the crisis of
the fight. Volleys of ball cartridges can
not long be resisted by the bravest of the
brave holding in their grasp only empty
gun barrels. Pressed harder and closer
by the new troops that Johnston had just
got up from Williamsburg, the 9TH and
9Th New Jersey gave ground, and soon
fell into disorder. Tt was not strange
for, their cartridge boxes empty, the men
felt themselves to be unarmed.
Heintzelman, having no aid within
miles of him, took his escort of third
Pennsylvanians, commanded by Capt j.
G. White, and persuaded them to return
to their ranks and resume their ground.
1t was heroic of any portion of the 5000
exhausted and substantially unarmed men
to face $4,000 comparatively fresh troops
pouring in upon them with a fierce and
steady increase. But Massachusetts,
regiment God bless that state and God
bless her people } greatly assisted this
devotion by fixing bayoncts on their empty
musket barrels and standing still for the
coming avalanche. 1t was now that death
passed fastest through our ranks. Officers
fell thickly and men went to earth in
heaps. Ten minutes more would have
ruined us-for dcmi-g could not have
sustained such an inequality as 5000 to
$4,000. Ten minutes more would have
saved the rebellion and caused the recog-
milton Of the revolted states ten minutes
more would have crushed military reputa-
ton, and driven a political party out of
power--and its administrators perhaps
out of life. But now Brigadier Berry of
the stout state of Maine--wading through
the mud and rain at such speed that he
actually overlook and passed three other
brigades, came in sight. Hcintzelman
shouted with gratitude. He ran to the
nearest band and ordered it to meet the
coming regiments with Yankee Doodle"
and to give them marching time into the
field with the Star Spanglcd Banner A
wild 3" hurrah went up from the enemy,
and with a yell that was electric three
regiments of Berry's brigade went to the
front, formed line nearly half mile
long, and commenced volley firing that
no troops on earth could stand before
then at the double-quick dashed with the
bayonets at the rebel army, and sent them
flying from the field into their earthworks,
pursued them into the largest of them,
and drove them out behind with the pure
steel, and then invited them to retake it.
The attempt was repeatedly made, and re-
peatedly repulsed. The count of the en-
emy's dead in that battery at the close
of the fight was s.. They were princi-
pally Michigan men who did this work.
"Thc equilibrium of the battle was re-
stored. TWAS now 4 o'clock, and Jamison
and Birney came up with their brigades,
covered with mud and steaming with rain,
but eager for share in the blessed work.
They went to the front, and soon the tide
of the fight turned backward. But Berry's
timely arrival, for which he is entitled
to both gratitude and honor, saved the
day. At dark his troops were in unre-
sisted possession of the battery they had
captured the rest of Heintzelman's force
was we'll placed, and in full front of the
enemy's line, while the enemy themselves
had withdrawn from the plain to the COW
er of their works. We were ready for the
renewal of the fight on the morrow. They
were whipped. Our men lighted their
fires, and cooked their coffee, and tried to
dry their clothes. Theirs were strapping
their knapsacks on their shoulders for
fight. They had met the Yankees on an
open field, and knew that at last they had
met their masters. So, through the mists
of the rainy night, the confederate army
of the Potomac stole out of their intrench-
ments, and obeyed the order to retreat.
Bull Run was avenged. The Williams
burg Run began at Q o'clock in the even
ing, and now, 80 hours after, is in full
panic and disorder, under the sabering of
our cavalry and the Smelling of our artil-