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of infantry, chiefly North Carolinians of Lane's brigade, and a score of artillerymen, in all 250 men. Thrice Gibbon's columns, above 5,000 strong, surged against the devoted outpost — thrice they recoiled, but about noon a fourth assault was ordered, and the assailants, rushing in, front and rear, discovered with surprise and admiration that of these two hundred and fifty brave men, two hundred and twenty had been struck down, yet were the wounded loading and passing up their muskets to the thirty unhurt and invincible veterans, who, with no thought of surrender, still maintained a biting fire from the front.
A splendid feat of arms, which taught prudence to the too eager enemy for the remainder of the day, for nearly six hundred of Gibbon's men lay dead and stricken in front of the work, and the most daring of the assailants recognized that an army of such metal would not easily yield the inner lines.1
