Impenetrable Thicket

Impenetrable Thicket. The Hornets' Nest. , Here, in the early afternoon of the first day, Union troops stubbornly defended the center of General Ulysses S. Grant's ragged three-mile battlefront. Deployed in a dense oak thicket, Union infantry, supported by six artillery batteries of four to six cannons each, easily repulsed several piecemeal Confederate assaults. Most of the Confederate army was engaged elsewhere on the battlefield, leaving only isolated brigades to attack Grant's center. Colonel Randall L. Gibson, under General Braxton Bragg, commanded one such brigade. Gibson's troops, unsupported by artillery, made at least three attempts to break the Union line. Each assault stalled in the "impenetrable thicket" and his infantry was decimated. Although these attacks failed, the Confederates gained ground elsewhere on the battlefield.,

The regiment…entered a dense thicket of undergrowth…Here we engaged the enemy three different times, and braved a perfect rain of bullets, shot, and shell. Exposed, facing great odds, with the enemy in front and on the flank, the regiment endured a murderous fire until endurance ceased to be a virtue. , Colonel James F. Fagan , 1st Arkansas Infantry