Stuck In The Mud

Stuck In The Mud. "To stop was death". Time: Mid-Afternoon , At 3 pm, Union Gen. George Crook launched a two-pronged attack on the Confederate left flank in an attempt to break the stalemate on the battlefield. One of his divisions, under Col. Isaac Duval, moved to attack here, but when the troops charged through a dense thicket and emerged on the bank, the swampy stretch of Red Bud Run in front of you caught them by surprise and brought them to a halt., An Ohio officer described the obstacle as, "A deep slough, twenty or thirty yards wide, and nearly waist deep, with deep soft mud at the bottom, and the surface overgrown with a thick bed of moss...” Troops in the front line stopped along the bank and the rear rank quickly stacked behind them. Lt. Col. William Enoch of the 5th West Virginia recalled, "Things were in a turmoil and confusion, nobody seemed to be directing our brigade or division...", At that moment, Col. Rutherford B. Hayes, later the 19th President of the Unites States, plunged his horse into the morass and quickly became mired down in the soft, muddy swamp bottom. The horse struggled "frantically" so Hayes "jumped off, and down on all fours, succeeded in reaching the rebel side-but alone.” The soldiers of 23rd Ohio struggled across after him but most of the troops marched upstream with Col. Duval and crossed in front of the Hackwood House where they launched their attack., "The Rebel fire now broke out furiously. Of course, the line stopped. To stop was death. To go on was probably the same; but on we started again." - Union Col. Rutherford B. Hayes, (captions) , 23rd Ohio Infantry. Many of the men in this photo may have taken part in the attack and followed Rutherford B. Hayes across Red Bud Run at this spot. Courtesy of Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, Col. Rutherford B. Hayes