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held the ground in a fierce combat.
The Zouaves attacking on the left flank,
Lieutenant Higgins promptly assembled 30 riflemen, and held them in check.
The attack being pressed anew, the regiment, having lost 81 killed and 234 wounded out of 537, and being unsupported, was forced to retire to its former position.
But
Marshall's gallant charge and contest had driven off the battery, and
Gregg ordered the First, Twelfth and Thirteenth forward again.
The struggle for the crest was renewed with heroic zeal and courage, and met with splendid firmness, driving
Gregg back a second time.
A third advance was ordered, and now the Fourteenth,
Col. Samuel McGowan, being by
Gregg's request relieved from outpost duty, was conducted by his aide,
Capt. Harry Hammond, to his right flank.
Passing through
Crenshaw's guns,
McGowan's men moved right forward, supported by the other shattered regiments of
Gregg's brigade.
‘Tired as they were,’ says
Gregg, ‘by two days and nights of outpost duty, and by a rapid march under a burning sun, they advanced with a cheer and at a double-quick.
Leading his regiment to the right of the Thirteenth and across the hollow,
Colonel McGowan arrived just in time to repulse the advance of the enemy and prevent them from establishing a battery on the brow of the hill.’
With varying success, backward and forward,
Gregg struggled to gain and pierce the
Federal line, but not until the final and united charge of
Lee's whole line was made at 7 o'clock, and when
Hood had gained the ‘wooded bluff’ and turned the
Federal left, did the
Confederate commands mount the whole line of defense and drive its heroic defenders from the field.
Gregg lost 829 (estimated) killed and wounded.
The severest losses in the brigade fell on the Rifles, the Fourteenth and the Twelfth.
The Rifles lost 319, the Fourteenth, 291, and the Twelfth, 155.
At one time every one of the color-guards of the First volunteers was shot down around Colonel Hamilton,
