When we left, Mahone's Virginians had been stynded on Court House Knob and Lang's Floridians had been able to hold the line with help from Jone's Virginians. Now Hall's Yankee brigade had come up in sup. port of Stoke's wavering troops. The 5th NY moved to take the Confederate left with the 64th PA in close support. The zouaves advanced smartly to the right of the 74th PA. The Colonel of the 5th NY saw the Rebs to his front and decided that a charge would break them and turn the flank. He ordered: Fix bayonets! Forward at the double. March! They broke into a trot, then a ran, as they neared the 44th VA. The Virginians were not alarmed as their CO yelled out the command, "Ready! Aim! Give it to them boys!" The ensuing storm of lead swept the zouave's ranks, but incredibly they charged on. Half of the Yankees were knocked out of aclion. Over one half of the 64th PA were laid low by the volley as well. But, the 44th was unable to hold and fell back in disorder behind the reorganizing 5th FL who were also obliged to give ground and fall back behind the reforming 2nd FL. Unfortunately for the 5th NY and 64th PA they bad run out of steam and realized the horrible extent of their loses, and fell back as well. At the height of this action Lang was hit and went down with a severed artery in his left leg. His men rushed to his side but it was too late. "I am done for boys, give em hell". He passed out never to regain consciousness again. There was some confusion as Major Moore of the 2nd FL was found and informed that he was now in command of the brigade. In the meantime, Jones got his regiments organized and was ready to advance and throw the Yankees out of the woods to his front. The 48th VA advanced against the 98th PA with the 42nd VA in support while the 50th VA and the 21st VA moved down Thompson's road. The 5th VA was now ready to move against the 121 st NY with the 2nd VA in support. Just as Gen. Stokes ordered the 98th to fall back out of harms way, a musket round struck him in the head, killing him instantly. His body slumped off his horse as his men streamed back through the 80th PA. The Confederate line was now 3 regiments long by 2 wide, and it surged forward. The 121st MY tried desperately to stem the tide but to no avail and was routed out of it's position by the 5th VA. The 5th Vermont was hit next by the Virginians of the Stonewall Brigade and they too are pushed back. The 80th PA traded shots with the 48th and 50th VA in the smoke filled woods along Thompson's road. The 80th Pa was reduced to a poor shadow of its strength. General Wright was getting worried as his troops were streaming past him in ever increasing numbers. He decided to call on Parker's men to try and help shore up his ragged line. General French had been focusing on his threatened left flank. The Rebs had been slowly increasing the pressure, but he thought his men would hold. The 6th ME had been rallied and now was put into the second line behind a fence. French then had Johns slowly move his men back towards the base of Court House Hill, which would have allowed the artillery a better field of fire on the Rebs as they advanced. The rebels, meanwhile, had shifted a regiment and unmasked an entire battalion of guns that caused considerable damage to the "hinge" in the Yankee fine, right between Russell's and David's brigades. He realized that if this new line could not hold he would have to withdraw the corps or see it destroyed. His attention was then drawn to the woods on Court House Knob as more Confederates began deploying out of the west side of the trees. French knew he had nothing to match them with, for by this time the Federal lines to the left of the corps were becoming a bad hodgepodge of John's and David's mixed Brigades. Only the 22nd MA, the 77th PA, and the 5th WIS were the fast fresh units available. D.H. Hill sensed that the time was right for the big push. He ordered Williams to advance with the whole of his division and sent word to Paxton to do the same. Lane's North Carolinians were moving into position, with the 33rd and 37th NC coming up through the woods behind the 22nd GA. The other three regiments were on the south side of Mule Road and moving up through the 5th GA. Perrin's brigade now swung into position to press the Yankee flank with the 1st SC with the 1st SC Rifles in the lead. Mahone ordered his battered troops forward as well, to support Perrin's left flank. General Wright then ordered his tired Georgia regiments to join alongside Lane's boys. The 22nd GA jumped the fence to their front and charged the 33rd EL who led pounded by the guns of Dance's for the past 40 minutes. They reached the fence line ahead of their brigade and that of Lane's. The 33rd IL tried to stop them but faded and the boys in blue fell back. Emboldened by this success the 22nd GA charges on, until they are stopped cold by volleyfire from the 5th WIS which had just started to move up to support the hapless 33rd. This time it was the Georgia boy's turn to scurry back in disorder, back to the fence line they had just wrested from the bluebellies. William saw this but wasn't much worried, for behind the 22nd was 3000 men advancing steadily to overwhelm the Union defenders. The 2nd GA approached the wall that the 119th PA had been ensconced behind all day. Now, with a target at close range, the Pennsylvania boys rose up and scythed down the Georgians! Few of the brave 2nd GA survived the carnage unscathed. But revenge is not long in coming. The 33rd NC approached the left end of the wall and opened a partial enfilade on the 119th PA that caught them by surprise. They turned and ran. (Snake eyes sure make the game interesting) The 5th NY light battery was now defending the hill alone, with a tide of gray and butternut ready to wash over them. Parker moved the 15th NY and 15th DEL up to support the 5th Vermont. They got into position just as Jones and Paxton began their assault. The 80th PA was forced back along with the 74th PA. But in this storm the 15th DEL stubbornly held on to the fence line to their front but they were outnumbered 3 to 1. The 5th VT gave some ground but refused to be beaten. This Confederate attack had gained some ground, but it had disordered the Reb line. they paused for a moment to redress the formations, then came. on again. This time the brave 15th DEL was smashed from two sides as the men finally gave in to panic and routed. This left the 15th NY exposed and they had to be pulled back to avoid the same fate as the the Delaware men. Moore had gotten the remnants of his command moving along with the men of the 44th VA. As they advanced, trying to put pressure on the reformed 5th NY and 98th PA, the 32nd light battery came galloping up and unlimbered. These Federal guns opened up a devastating fire on the 8th FL. This artillery fire, combined with musketry from 5th NY and the 98th PA routed them. The 44th VAS moved up to confront the Feds and suffered the same fate. But then the 42nd VA moved up through the stalled 48th VA and killed 2/3 of the 32nd Light Battery. The green 15th NJ now took fire from the 33rd VA but managed to stay steady. (Being behind a fence, and with a -2 leader helped a lod ) The confederates now needed to stop, redress their ranks again, and prepare for another push. The Union boys continued to fall back to try and gain breathing space. An aid then reached General Wright with orders for him to pull the division out and fall back to Court House Hill. On the Yankee left General Perrin was advancing on the enemy in strength. the 1st SC rifles were forced to withdraw after heavy loses against the 77th PA, and their place in the line was taken by the 12th SC. The 12th had managed to work itself into close range in the woods with their smoothbore muskets and opened a telling fire on the 77th. The 1st SC now moved up and mowed down the men of the 12th MA, the survivors routing back up Court House Hill. Fear was beginning to spread through the Yankee lines. The 6th ME fled the fence line and skedadled up the hill, leaving the men of the 9th MA battery alone. These artillerymen then abandoned their guns and ran for the rearl (Snake eyes twice in a row!) The Union position that had looked like it might be able to buy Gen. Perrin some time and enable Wright to get his division back, and give the corps time to withdraw in good order was starting to look increasingly less tenable. Now came the climax of the battle. D.H. Hill urged Williams to make an all out attack to breach the Union position. Paxton again moved forward. The focus of the attack was the 5th VT. the 42nd VA charged the guns to the 5th's right while Latimer's battery opened up on the Vermonters. The 21st VA then charged diem. The last of the battered 32nd light battery were taken which allowed the 42nd to hit the 5th VA on the right flank. The 21st VA was stopped cold, but this allowed the 42nd VA to finally cause the collapse of the 5th VT. At the same time Stonewall Brigade pressed home against the 15th NY and the 15th NJ. The 15th NY was pushed back in disorder to court House Road while the New Jersey boys managed to cling to their position along the fence. Major Moore was unable to get his awn to do more than trade shots with the zouaves and needed the LA GD artillery to unlimber to persuade the Feds to leave. The remnants of Wright's Division now disengaged and retreated back towards the woods below Court House Hill. Lane and Wright sensed the weakening of the Union line and launched everyone forward in a massive attempt to overwhelm the position. The 7th NC charged for the guns behind the wall, and were slaughtered by double canister. The charge collapsed. the 33rd NC charged the 5th WIS with the 48th stop the charge and were forced back. The 37th NC moved up to face the 70th NY and swamped them with fire from 700 rifles. The 70th joined the flood of men heading for the rear. The 77th NY managed to hold it's position but at a terrible cost as the 12 SC continued to ravage them with close range fire. The 1st SC, with the 13th SC on it's right moved to take on the 22nd MA. The Bay staters knew that with 200 men they could not hope to stop the 800 that were descending on them. Gen. Christopher went down with a serious wound as he tried to rally the 5th WIS. This left only one Yankee regiment fresh, and in good order; the 49th PA. It was ordered to fall back and try to slow the Rebs down a bit, enough to allow the. rest of the corps to got away. Wright's Division was able to reach the woods and from there they were able to back away along the west side of the hill to join the rest of 8th Corps' retreat. Paxton's men were too shot up and disorganized to pursue effectively. The 49th PA was wiped out buying precious time, as was the 77th NY. The 15th NY light artillery died at their guns, all the limber horses having been shot by the 33rd NC as they blocked off the road and any hope of escape. The final tally for the battle was tremendous for the smallish size of the forces engaged, testament to the ferocity and determination on both sides. The Union lost 4,600 men killed, wounded or missing as well as 12 guns. The Confederates lost 4,000 about 1000 of them coming in the last assaults on the Union position. Both Union Divisions were wrecked and would need a lot of replacements to be effective fighting units again. For the Confederates, Lang's (now Moore's) brigade was pretty much useless as a combat force. Mahone's loses were also heavy, but on the whole most of the Confederate dead were pretty evenly divided. The game lasted 22 turns and covered the time frame of 9am to 4pm. It was a visually stimulating game especially when the final Reb assaults were going on. The visual panorama of that many 15mm figures (and all those flags) on good terrain was tremendous. Back to Table of Contents The Messenger August 2001 Back to The Messenger List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by HMGS/PSW. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com