Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1864-05-27
HancOck's Splendid Charge ... A Vivid
DeRCrintiOu.

HancOck's Splendid Charge So. A Vivid
Description.
The special correspondent of the New
York Times, writing on Friday, gives
the following account of Hancock
charge upon the enemy's works:
1 have just returned from the scene of
Gen. Hancock's brilliant victory of yes
terday morning. At the point at which
his assault was made, the rebel breast
works formed an angle or salient, and
his men advanced silently, and, without
firing shot, entered the salient, and
swept up the inside of the right, making
the splendid haul of prisoners already
known to you. Unfortunately, the sup
porting line cheered when nearing the
works, otherwise we would, the prison
ers say, have captured both Ewell and
Lee.
The assault was made between four
and five o'clock, in the gray of the
morning. BarlOw's division, which had
the advance, Milks' brigade leading,
went up in column by battalion double
on the center, Birney's division in two
lines of battle, and the divisions of Glib
bon and Mott, in the second line, sup
porting. The stOrming column rushed
over the enemy's breastwOrks, which
were exceedingly strong, with ditch in
front, and drove the enemy back for a
mile. Here the enemy rallied, and
Hancock, at 6 A. NJ, returned and form
ed his line of battle in the enemy's
works. AS this was the key of the
whole position our right was gradually
refused, and the main body of the army
massed on the left.
The 9th Corps (Wright,) which had
been on the right of the I'd, withdrew
behind their skirmish line and united
with Hancock's right, and afterward
two divisions of Warren's were brought
over. The history of the day after six
o'clock in the morning, is all summed
up in five successive and fierce assaults
which Lee made to retake the lost posi-
ton. AT first Ewell's corps alone con-
fronted Hancock, but during the day
Hill and LOngstreet were drawn over
from the rebel left, and the whole army
of Lee flung itself in five desperate
efforts to recapture the breastwOrks.-
But it was all in vain, as every assault
met Il bloody repulse.
SO terrific was the photographic,
however, that at different times of the
day the rebel colOrs were planted on the
one side of the works and ours on the
other, the men fighting across the para
pet. Nothing during the war has equal
ed the savage desperation of this strug
gle, which continued fourteen hours,
and the scene of the conflict from which
l have just come, presents spectacle of
horror that curdles the blood of the bold
est. The angle of the works at which
Hancock entered, and for the possession
of which the savage fight of the day was
made, is perfect Golgotha. In this
angle of death the dead and wounded
rebels lie, this morning, literally in
piles-men in the agonies of death,
grooming beneath the dead bodies of
their comrades. On an area of a few
acres in rear of their position lie not less
than a thousand rebel corpses, many lit
orally torn to shreds by hundreds of
balls, and several with bayonet thrusts
through and through their bodies,
pierced on the very margins of the para
pet, which they were determined to
retake or perish in the attempt The
one exclamation of every man who
looks on the spectacle is, 'God forbid
that should ever gaze on such sight
again.
Hancock's movement is regarded here
as the most brilliantly conceived and
executed tactical operation of the war,
and has added to the splendid fame he
won in the three days fight in the Will
derness. After the turning movement
of the morning the Sixth Corps and two
divisions of the Second should be in
Guided in the history of the day. They
share the hOnors of the glorious, but
bloody field of Spotsylvania. Our loss
OF yesterday must reach ten thousand.