Jones' division, after fighting
for three-quarters of an hour on the meadows, fell back to the West
Wood; General Jones was carried wounded from the field, and the guns
on the turnpike were abandoned.
6.30 A.M.
So tremendous was the fire, that the corn, said Hooker, over thirty
acres was cut as close by the bullets as if it had been reaped with
the sickle, and the dead lay piled in regular ranks along the whole
Confederate front. Never, he added, had been seen a more bloody or
dismal battle-field. To the east of the turnpike Lawton's division,
strengthened at the critical moment by the brigade in second line,
held Meade in check, and with a sharp counterstroke drove the
Pennsylvanians back upon their guns. But Gibbon, fighting fiercely in
the centre by the Miller House, brought up a battery in close support
of his first line, and pressed heavily on the West Wood until the
Confederate skirmishers, creeping through the maize, shot down the
gunners and the teams;* (* This battery of regulars, 'B' 4th U.S.
Artillery, lost 40 officers and men killed and wounded, besides 33
horses. O.R. volume 19 part 1 page 229.) and Starke, who had
succeeded Jones, led the Valley regiments once more into the open
field.
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