The Attack Begins
The Breakthrough Trail
Major General Horatio G. Wright deployed the 14,000 attackers of his Sixth Corps in a wedge-shaped formation. Although the entire battle front extended for nearly a mile, the point of the wedge was here, manned by the Vermont Brigade commanded by Brigadier General Lewis A. Grant. Some 2,200 Vermonters stepped out at 4:40 a.m. to lead the assault, their left flank hugging the ravine to your left. The rest of the Sixth Corps formed to the left and right of the Vermonters but somewhat behind them. At the sound of a signal gun, the entire Sixth Corps arose and moved forward, invisible in the misty darkness but making a noise “like a strong breeze blowing through the swaying boughs and dense foliage of some great forest.”
The new Confederate picket line fell quickly, but the graycoats behind the main line of fortifications soon realized what was happening. The earthworks in front of you erupted with orange sheets of flame as rifles and cannon wielded by the alerted Southerners poured a deadly fire across this naked field. Could the Vermonters sustain their momentum?
Marker can be reached from Duncan Road (Virginia Route 670), on the left when traveling south.
Courtesy hmdb.org
