May 10, 1864
[Tuesday] there was sharp fighting all along the line.
General Mott's division of the 2d Corps was put on the left of the 6th Corps,
with the idea of making a connection with Burnside and then swinging our left
to take the enemy in flank. I was ordered early to go to General Wright and
explain to him, then to General Mott and direct him to demonstrate along his
front and feel on the left for Burnside. General Wright had moved his
Headquarters and had put them a little back and on one side, being moved
thereto by the fact that the first selection was a focus for shells. Then I
rode along the lines to General Mott and got his position as well as I could,
and gave him the order. Coming back to General Wright, I had a sharp corner to
go through. A battery was firing at one of ours and the shells coming over
struck right among our infantry. They cut the pine trees about me in a manner I
didn't like, and one burst close by, throwing the pieces round just as you see
them in French battle pictures. All day there was firing. About eleven came
General Meade and told me to go out at once to Mott and to get a written report
from him, which I did; and a sharpshooter shot at me, which I hate — it is so
personal. More by token, poor General Rice, a Massachusetts man and very
daring, was to-day killed by a sharpshooter. The ball broke his thigh, and,
when they amputated his leg, he never rallied. As he lay on the stretcher, he
called out to General Meade: “Don't you give up this fight! I am willing to
lose my life, if it is to be; but don't you give up this fight!” All day we
were trying to select places for an assault. Barlow crossed the Po on the
right, but was afterwards ordered back, and had a brilliant rear-guard fight in
which he punished the enemy. From five to six P.M. there was heavy cannonading,
the battalions firing by volley. At 6.30 Upton, with a heavy column of picked
men, made a most brilliant assault with the bayonet, at the left of the Sixth
Corps. The men rushed on, without firing a shot, carried the breastworks in the
face of cannon and musketry, and took 900 prisoners. Some of the men, who
faltered, were run through the body by their comrades! But Mott's men on the
left behaved shamefully, and so Upton was obliged again to fall back, bringing
his prisoners with him.1 . . .
_______________
1 “11 P.m. Grant in consultation with Meade.
Wright came up also; he uttered no complaints, but said quietly and firmly to
Meade: ‘General, I don't want Mott's men on my left; they are not a support;
I would rather have no troops there!’ Warren is not up to a corps command. As
in the Mine Run move, so here, he cannot spread himself over three divisions.
He cannot do it, and the result is partial and ill-concerted and dilatory
movements.” — Lyman's Journal.
SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s
Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness
to Appomattox, p. 108-10
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