About this time Jackson seems to have reached his limit of retreat, and was now forging steadily to the front, regaining every inch of the lost ground of the morning.  The Federal Commander-in-Chief, seeing the stubborn resistance he is met with in front of the city, and Jackson’s gray lines pressing his left back upon the river, began to feel the hopelessness of his battle, and sent orders to Franklin to attack Jackson with his entire force.  Hooker was to reinforce Sumner on the right, the latter to take the stone wall and the heights beyond before night.  Sturgis had met the fate of those who had assaulted before him.  Now Getty and Griffin were making frantic efforts to reach the wall.  Griffin had his men concealed and protected in the wet, marshy bed of the old canal.  He now undertook to accomplish that which Howard had attempted in the morning, and failed—­the feat of taking the stone walls with empty guns.

In this column of assault was the famous Meager’s Irish Brigade, of New York,—­all Irishmen, but undoubtedly the finest body of troops in the Federal Army.  When the signal for advance was given, from out of their hiding places they sprang—­from the canal, the bushes on the river bank, the side streets in the city, one compact row of glittering bayonets came—­in long battle lines.  General Kershaw, seeing the preparation made for this final and overwhelming assault upon our jaded troops, sent Captain Doby, of his staff, along our lines with orders to hold our position at all hazards, even at the point of the bayonet.

As the rifle balls from the housetops and shells from the batteries along the river banks sang their peculiar death notes overhead and around us, this brave and fearless officer made the entire length of the line, exhorting, entreating, and urging the men to redoubled efforts.  How Captain Doby escaped death is little less than miraculous.

The casualties of battle among the officers and the doubling up process of the men behind the wall caused all order of organization to be lost sight of, and each man loaded and fired as he saw best.  The men in the road, even the wounded, crowded out from the wall by force of number, loaded the guns for the more fortunate who had places, and in many instances three and four men loaded the guns for one, passing them to those who were firing from the top of the stone fence.  Each seemed to fight on his own responsibility, and with the same determined spirit to hold the wall and the heights above.  Each felt as if the safety of the army depended upon his exertions alone.

With a firm and elastic step this long, swaying line of Irishmen moved to the assault with as much indifference apparently to their fate as “sheep going to the shambles.”  Not a shot was fired from this advancing column, while the shells from our batteries cut swath after swath through their ranks, only to be closed again as if by some mechanical means; colors fall, but rise and float again, men bounding forward