“So hot as to make it impossible”

Bolting unknowingly ahead of the remainder of the division, Woods's Ohioans suddenly became the tip of Steele's spear by default. It also meant that, as the foremost prong of the attack, they drew the concentrated fire of the enemy batteries and came into the range of Rebel infantry sooner than those on the division's wings.298 _{Though most of the 600 yards covered at the} double-quick was over open fields, a thin belt of trees stood roughly 75 yards from the Rebel works.299 _{Just before and beyond the tree line, the enemy had constructed rude abatis out of} “brush and fallen timber” in an effort to make the final approach to the only available cover exceptionally dangerous to any attacker.300 _{This combination of obstructions “considerably} impeded the movements of the regiment,” Woods noted. As the winded and now disheveled Ohioan formation reached the abatis, at about 250 yards the Rebel works finally awoke with a shock volley of small arms, grapeshot, and canister.301 _{While not fired at sufficient range to}

297 _{Hovey's OR Report, 766-767.} 298 _{Hovey's OR Report, 766-767.} 299 _{Wood's OR Report, 768.}

300 _{Ritner [25 IA] to Emeline, Jan. 13, 1863, Love and Valor,102.} 301 _{Wood's OR Report, 768; Miller [76 OH], Struggle, 77-78.}

constitute part of an attritional defense, the volley was also fired too early to produce ample “shock,” most especially because most of the poorly aimed Rebel rounds whizzed over the attacker's heads. Opening at such distance, however, allowed for a second try. After the Secessionists reloaded quickly, the next “fell plump into our lines,” Adjutant Miller lamented, “and made considerable havoc.”302 _{More than a dozen Ohioans immediately fell dead and}

another 57 were wounded by the single fusillade – nearly 15% of the regiment's combat strength, “but the men kept straight on” Miller remembered.303 _{The veterans of many such ragged Rebel} volleys at Donelson and Shiloh had learned that such an encounter was in fact survivable, and Woods's command safely endured its "penultimate moment."

Conversely, twenty paces behind, the Hawkeyes of the 25th immediately dropped to the ground when the shooting began. One Iowan noticed how the men instinctively sought the “slight protection afforded by the stumps and brush,” and several of them nervously

“commenced firing” at targets of opportunity against all orders, threatening the Ohioans still to their front.304 _{Noticing immediately that their supports had gone to ground in terror, the veterans} were outraged that Stone's levies had “left us exposed to the concentrated fire of the Rebel regiments.” As the 76th now represented the lone regiment of the division still standing and visible along the forward edge of Steele's advance, they immediately attracted all Rebel fire within range. “About three regiments strong,” Woods reported, “opened a destructive fire of

302 _{Wood's OR Report, 768; Miller [76 OH], Struggle, 77-78.} 303 _{Miller [76 OH], Struggle, 77-78.}

musketry upon us from the front and right and left, extending on the left to the full extent of the range of their muskets [rifles].”305

Although an attacking regiment's success against a shock-reliant defense was principally contingent upon its resilient response to the impact of a defender's initial volley, the arrival of but a single lone regiment to an enemy parapet was itself of little real tactical value. A defender's line had to be confronted with attackers along the entirety of its frontage simultaneously. If columns arrived piecemeal, their foremost regiments would face not only the shock of a volley from the enemy to their immediate front, but also from enemy troops on both flanks for a distance of potentially hundreds of yards in either direction, pouring in a devastating enfilade fire. It was through this enfilading fire that the increased range of rifled muskets could make the greatest difference. Defenders finding themselves unchallenged to the front could contribute their fire to an attacker far distant with much greater accuracy when armed with rifles than with muskets. Should this bloody contingency occur, an attacker would find himself, as did Woods's Ohioans, confronted with both a (short-range) shock-reliant and (long-range) attritional defense

simultaneously.

While much of the fire concentrated on Woods's beleaguered regiment was still

mercilessly “too high,” enough of it found its mark to finally stall the forward momentum of the veterans. Recognizing that he had outpaced both Thayer to the left and the Missourians on his right, Woods still did his best to drive his Ohioans through the tree line and across the final 75 yards despite the heavy fire incoming from three sides. They would have none of it. As soon as the line reached the relative safety of the trees “the fire became so hot that the regiment faltered, but held its ground,” Woods recalled. Knowing full well they were unsupported, the men

instinctively “all dropped on their faces,” Miller recalled.306 _{Woods still did his best to urge them} on, to keep them moving forward. “Finding it impossible to push the regiment over the open ground,” he tried ordering them to fire “to give them confidence,” he explained. He was immediately struck by the result. “After the regiment opened fire not a man flinched.” The Buckeyes each fired multiple rounds from the prone behind the scant cover of the broken treeline, when Woods again tried to drive them forward, “but as soon as the men raised to move forward the fire was so hot as to make it impossible,” he reported.307

Finally accepting that the regiment was immovable, Woods's shifted his priorities from carrying the trenches to providing suppressive fire from the trees that might keep Rebel heads down long enough to allow adjacent units to drive home their own assaults. Though the head logs running along the tops of the Rebel pits covered the forms of the enemy infantry and made them a difficult target for prone riflemen even at close range, the Rebel batteries and their horses were clearly visible just beyond the trenches. Here was an opportunity. Woods "ordered the men to clear and silence the guns of the enemy in our front,” he reported, and the Buckeyes made short work of it.308 _{“Not a single shot was fired from their two Parrott guns in our immediate} front,” Woods remarked, the rifle fire making the guns too dangerous to man and the killing of their horses rendering the heavy pieces immovable.309 _{An additional enemy gun “some distance} to our left” observed actively engaging Thayer's or even Second Division's lines also drew Woods's attention, and thus a hand-picked squad of the regiment's “best marksmen were ordered

306 _{Miller [76 OH], Struggle,78; Woods’s OR Report, 768-769.} 307 _{Woods’s OR Report, 768.}

308 _{Woods’s OR Report, 768.} 309 _{Woods’s OR Report, 768.}

a little in advance,” Miller remembered, “and, while protecting themselves as best they could behind trees, picked off the gunners of the battery which they completely silenced.”310 _The remainder of the regiment continued “skimming the enemy's parapets with musket balls,” suppressing the Rebel infantry within and creating an opportunity for Stone's terrified Iowans to finally arise from their temporary cover at the abatis and rush forward to join their veteran comrades along the treeline where they laid down once more.311 _{From there, they joined in the} target practice. “Some got where they could see something to Shoot at and Kept popping away,” one lieutenant remarked after the fight, “Others could not get a Sight & dident Shoot.”312 _{A few} particularly zealous Hawkeyes “fired forty or fifty Shots,” expending almost all of their

ammunition.313 _{All along the line junior officers were “yelling themselves hoarse, men Shouting”} and “an incessant popping” added to the battle ambiance.314

Leaders in both regiments did far more than yell. Stone made a point to “at all times” be visible “at the head of his regiment,” one of the command wrote. The Colonel even “made several good shots with a rifle borrowed from one of the men, who was not so good a

marksman,” he added. Stone's executive officer “was as cool and collected during the fight as if he had been at home,” and further strove to rally the more anxious and encourage them “by his example.”315 _{The Ohioan command team behaved similarly. Woods “exposed himself in the}

310 _{Woods’s OR Report, 768; Miller [76 OH], Struggle, 78.} 311 _{Miller [76 OH], Struggle, 78.}

312 _{Withrow [25 IA] to Lib, Jan. 12, 1863.} 313 _{Withrow [25 IA] to Lib, Jan. 12, 1863.} 314 _{Withrow [25 IA] to Lib, Jan. 12, 1863.}

thickest of the fight,” Miller recalled. “His large form was a conspicuous mark, but he was perfectly cool and walked about, twisting his mustache and breaking sticks as was his habit, with an eye on all that was transpiring.”316 _{Even Stone's Iowans later commented on Woods's coolness} under fire.317 _{His brother, the regiment's executive officer, “would not lie down, but walked up} and down the lines encouraging the men and exposing himself,” Miller noted. “A bullet struck his revolver with such force as to bend the barrel, but it saved his life as otherwise it must have shattered his thigh fatally.”318

Beyond the lack of further enemy artillery fire, however, the smoke and debris filling no man's land made it difficult for any shooter to judge the real effectiveness of his fire. “Quite a number of men were seen to drop as if killed or wounded, but to what extent the enemy suffered from our fire I cannot tell,” Woods later admitted. For many, the only viable targets were the arms and weapons of Rebels who “did not dare to show their heads,” but instead “just put their arms over and fired at random,” Miller wrote.319 _{Though un-aimed, such fire was still dangerous.} “One man lying near me received a ball on the point of his chin which coursed down his neck,” Miller recalled. “He threw up his arms and called to me that he was badly wounded and moaned terribly.” The Adjutant “reached over and passed my finger down the bloody mark on his neck and found that the bullet had not entered.” He “tied up his neck with a handkerchief and assured him that there was no danger,” which calmed the grazed volunteer. Woods and Stone's regiments

316 _{Miller [76 OH], Struggle,81.}

317 _{“Nelson” [25 IA] to Burlington Weekkly Hawk-Eye, Jan. 31, 1863.} 318 _{“Nelson” [25 IA] to Burlington Weekkly Hawk-Eye, Jan. 31, 1863.} 319 _{Miller [76 OH], Struggle, 78.}

remained “advanced as far as there was cover for our men” for the next several hours, laying down a heavy suppressive fire from cover and triaging their casualties.320