. Personal recollections and civil war diary, 1864; . officers pitched highso as to be heard above the din, giving orders, theassault was made through the thin strip of timber inour front toward Winchester when we briefly haltedand laid on the ground, and then across an open fieldbeyond the woods in all about two hundred and fiftyyards where I was, midst a perfect storm of solid shotand shell, rattling musketry on my right and front,and whizzing minie balls without being able to firea rifle at first so well was the enemy in my front pro-tected by the lay of the ground and its rail breast-works
. Personal recollections and civil war diary, 1864; . officers pitched highso as to be heard above the din, giving orders, theassault was made through the thin strip of timber inour front toward Winchester when we briefly haltedand laid on the ground, and then across an open fieldbeyond the woods in all about two hundred and fiftyyards where I was, midst a perfect storm of solid shotand shell, rattling musketry on my right and front,and whizzing minie balls without being able to firea rifle at first so well was the enemy in my front pro-tected by the lay of the ground and its rail breast-works. We persistently advanced, though, but ittook a great deal of nerve and will power to do it inan open field without the slightest cover, all the timemidst a perfect storm of iron and leaden hail and thecries of the wounded and dying which were discon-certing, until we drove the enemy back pell mell fromits works in my front in the utmost confusion—yes,in a perfect stampede for they were old soldiers andknew when they were whipped, and when it was. CIVIL WAR DIARY, 1864. 163 necessary to run with all their might to save them-selves from slaughter and ignominious capture.(See Nos. 3 foreground and Nos. 5 and 6 illustra-tions). The Tenth Vermont, Fourteenth New Jersey andthe rest of our brigade as usual, not only proudly ledthe Division at first by a good deal in the advancethrough the woods but in this instance the whole was therefore not only the most aggressive andconspicuous part of—being on high ground where Icould see our line of battle each way—but the mostimportant point in the line; was first seen whenthrough the wood and the most dreaded by the enemybeing on the pike, and in consequence its artilleryfire within reach was concentrated on us, and it zvasa hot place. But soon, after recovering from thecollapse of the Second Brigade on my right whichwholly disappeared and nothing more was seen of itby me, with the valor of the old-time Green Moun-tain Boys on
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