74 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. inforeements. Nearly a mile of ground had been lost, fifteen gm , and the divisional camp of Casey in the advance. But now the troops began to stand firm. A sort of line of battle was formed across the woods, perpendicularly to the railway and to the r >ad, and there tlie repeated assaults of the enemy are met. The left cannot lie turned, being protected by the impenetrable morasses of White Oak Swamp; but the right might be surrounded. At this very moment, indeed, a strong confederate column is moving in that direction. If it succeed in getting between Bottom B.idge and the federal troops who arc lighting at Savage’s Station, the whole left wing is lost. It will have no retreat left, and must be overwhelmed. But exactly at this moment (six o’clock p. m.), new actors come upon the stage. Sumner, ■who has at last passed the river with Sedgwick’s division on the bridge built by his troops, and who, with a soldier's instinct, has marched straight to the cannon through the woods, suddenly appears upon the flank of the hostile column which is trying to cut oft' llcintzehnan and Keyes. lie plants in a clearing a battery which he has succeeded in bringing up. Uis guns are not rifled guns, the rage of the hour, and fit only to be fired in cool blood, and at long range in an open country; they are real fighting guns, old twelve-pound howitzers carrying either a round projectile, which ricochets and rolls, or a good dose of grape. The simple and rapid lire of these pieces makes terrible havoc in the hostile ranks. In vain Johnston sends up bis best troops against this battery, the flower of South Carolina, including tlie Hampton Legion; in vain does he come upon the field in person ; nothing can shake the federal ranks. When night falls, it was the federals who, bayonet in hand, and gallantly led by Sumner himself, charged furiously upon tint foe, and drove him before them with fearful slaughter, as far as Lair Oaks station. Night put an end to the conflict. On either side no ono
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