The Battle of Shaunsburg Part 3

 In an attempt to capture three objectives and cut off the defending Union army’s retreat the Confederate attack ramped up in the next phase of the battle. The initial right flank attack gained strength and the Union hold on that part of the field was in for a challenge. 

Union troops hold the fence and the left flank of the defensive line. 

6:00pm-7:20pm

On the Union right flank Hays’ division was present in full on the field behind a fence in a wheat field.  They bristled menacingly and even advanced beyond the defensive line but participated little.  While the Union middle and left suffered under Confederate hammer blows the troops of the right sat firm holding off a single less than aggression Confederate brigade.  In nearly three and a half hours of fighting Hays’ division suffered only 540 casualties with 480 of these being from a single regiment caught marching to the center by a cavalry charge that hit them in column and swooped them up. 

In the Union center the situation was more grim. A single Union brigade held a stretch of nearly a mile of ground.  Parts of two Confederate divisions under John Bell Hood and D R Jones attacked and drove the brigade up the hill the Union troops were trying to protect.  This was the brigade of Hobart Ward of Birney’s division and it was near breaking.  The two other brigades of the division missed their six o’clock arrival time and were not in sight.  

An aggressive and steady push by two of D R Jones's brigades and a battery of horse artillery from Wade Hampton’s cavalry brigade was slowed but not stopped.  A brave sally forth by a lone Union regiment into the central cornfield was crushed by a Confederate charge but may have slowed the Rebel advance just enough as Carr’s Brigade finally arrived a full hour late. 

Carr arrives late but maybe not too late. 

On the Union left where the main Confederate blow had landed the Iron Brigade continued to stubbornly hold back parts of two Confederate Brigades under Barksdale and the Texas Brigade.   The timely arrival of Farnsworth’s cavalry and its repeating carbines as well as three artillery batteries lending support from atop a centrally located hill drove off the charge of the Texas brigade.    Barksdale was able to gain the far flank and hit the Union line in full enfilade with a charge that routed an Illinois cavalry battalion and rolled up the Union left flank. 

The Texas Brigade is held back 

Just as in the middle, the hard fighting Wisconsin and Indiana boys with support from the Cavalry received hammer blows but bought time.  Doubleday’s two other brigades arrived to try to support the crumbling flank.  

The Confederates too welcomed reinforcements.  Hood’s supporting artillery arrived and began pouring fire into a battalion of cavalry that was anchoring the right end of Doubleday’s left flank.   A point blank volley by a regiment in Evander Laws’ brigade sent another cavalry battalion running into the woods and up the hill in the Union center left.  If the Confederates gained that hill the Union center might collapse.  

Would the Union reinforcements win the race to drive off the Rebel attack?

Union troops march in behind the Union center 

In three hours of fighting 22420 Union soldiers suffered approximately 2670 casualties.  23580 Confederates suffered 3810 casualties.  Ward’s Union brigade in the center alone sustained 1140 casualties  while the entire division of Hays only suffered 540. Two Union brigades of roughly ten regiments supported by three battalions of artillery had held off parts of three Confederate divisions containing 30 regiments while three fresh Union brigades held off one Confederate brigade.  

Only a little over two hours of daylight remained.  Could the Union hold?