June 17, 1864
At daylight Potter, of the 9th Corps, assaulted the enemy's
works at a point near what was then our left. He took the works very
handsomely, with four guns and 350 prisoners, and had his horse shot under him.
Potter (a son of the Bishop of Pennsylvania) is a grave, pleasant-looking man,
known for his coolness and courage. He is always very neatly dressed in the
full uniform of a brigadier-general. His Headquarters are now at the house
where he took two of the cannon. You ought to see it! It is riddled with bullets
like the cover of a pepper-box. In a great oak by his tent a cannon-ball has
just buried itself, so that you can see the surface under the bark. In a few
years the wood will grow over it, and there it will perhaps remain to astonish
some wood-cutter of the future, when the Great Rebellion shall have passed into
history. This was a brave day for Burnside. He fought in the middle of the day,
with some gain, and just before evening Ledlie's division attacked and took a
third line, beyond the one taken by Potter. This could have been held, I think,
but for the idea that we were to advance still more, so that preparations were
made to push on instead of getting reserves in position to support the advanced
force. The enemy, however, after dark, concentrated and again drove out our
troops, who fell back to the work taken by Potter in the morning; and so ended
the anniversary of Bunker Hill. In the attack of that evening, Major Morton,
Chief Engineer of the 9th Corps, was killed — a man of an eccentric disposition,
but of much ability. He was son of the celebrated ethnologist, whose unrivaled
collection of crania is now in the Philadelphia Academy.
SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s
Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness
to Appomattox, p. 166-7
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