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Private John Stevens of the 5th Texas Infantry: “The battery of seven guns on that hill in our front are mowing down the Fourth Texas like grain before the scythe. ‘Take that battery, boys!’ Like a flash of lightning the Texans moved forward upon the seven gun battery; the gunners double shot it with scrapnell and sweep our ranks at close range, cutting down our boys by the hundreds as they move toward it, but nothing daunted, with an impetuosity that cannot be prtrayed by human pen, on they move, the very mouths of these death dealing machines are reached, as the dying gunner fires his last gun into our ranks and is shot down at his gun. The battery is in our hands; its destructive work ceases; the brave men, who a moment ago were working these guns, are now cold in death. The horses are all killed or badly wounded.” -- from Stevens’ memoirs Reminiscences of the Civil War, as quoted in Voices of the Civil War: The Seven Days, page 74
Captain William Weeden, commanding Battery C, First Rhode Island Light Artillery: “At the fourth attack the infantry gave way; the pieces kept up their fire, using canister as the enemy came near. The cannoneers served the guns until the supporting infantry had all retired. There were then . . . 3 men at each piece. Three horses were killed at one limber, one horse was killed at the other, and the remaining ones stampeded under the tremendous musketry of the enemy, though the drivers made every effort to restrain them. The pieces were necessarily abandoned.” -- from Weeden’s battle report, in War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, series I, volume 11, part 2, page 282
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