Union Artillery

Union Artillery. . Porter posted his batteries intermittently along this ridge. Most of his guns were twelve-pounder Napoleons like the two here., “The woods were full of smoke,” wrote a Massachusetts artillerist, “and thicker and thicker buzzed the bullets.” Soon the Confederate infantry appeared. One of the Federal guns fired a double charge of canister at 35 yards range, which “mowed their ranks awfully,”, It was a last salute. Thousands of gray-clad infantry swarmed up the hill and by nightfall had captured nearly two dozen of Porter’s cannon., “By the time we had gotten across [Boatswain’s Creek], the front line, broken by our fire, frightened by our screams which sounded like forty thousand wild cats, had … crowded to the top of the hill, thus preventing their artillery from firing into us … We ran over their artillery, killing the gunners at their guns … We paid dearly for this occasion, but they paid still more dearly, for their dead and dying lay so thick as almost to block our pursuit.” , Edmund D. Patterson, 9th Alabama Infantry.