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Brigadier General Ambrose Wright, brigade commander: “The fire was terrific now beyond anything I had ever witnessed--indeed, the hideous shrieking of shells through the dusky gloom of closing night, the whizzing of bullets, the loud and incessant roll of artillery and small-arms, were enough to make the stoutest heart quail.” -- from Wright’s battle report, in War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, series I, volume 11, part 2, page 815
Private Robert Stiles of the Richmond Howitzers, Virginia Artillery: “Three of the guns of the old battery were put into action against McClellan’s majestic aggregation of batteries. . . . I was as sound and strong as human flesh could well be, and yet my lungs seemed to be pumped out, my brain reeled and my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, which was burnt so dry that I experienced great difficulty in swallowing. Nevertheless, I managed to do my part in serving my gun, until, in a few moments, it was completely disabled, when I fell to the earth, a horror of great darkness came upon me, and the only distinct impression I can recall is that I felt I would be glad to compromise on annihilation. When I roused myself from this semi-stupor or swoon the detachment seemed to have disappeared, but in a few moments I found most of the men. . . . It was the first battle in which members of the company had been killed outright. The wonder is that any survived who were working these three pieces; but I suppose it is to be accounted for by the fact that the guns were quickly disabled and put out of action.” -- Stiles’ memoirs Four Years Under Marse Robert, pages 103-104
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