In This Episode

It's 1:00 PM, May 5th, 1864 -- While the famed Iron Brigade is being destroyed on General James Wadsworth's right, his other Brigades -- commanded by Generals Stone and Rice -- are scattered and lost nearly half a mile too far to the left. When an invisible enemy attacks them out of nowhere, nobody knows who to shoot or where to run.

Notable Quotes

"[W]eird, uncanny contest—a battle of invisibles with invisibles."
-- Union Soldier

"[M]en's faces were sweaty black from biting cartridges, and a sort of grim ferocity seemed to be creeping into the actions and appearance of everyone within the limited range of vision."
-- Union Soldier

"No man can claim that he saw this battle, and although undoubtedly it had a line and formation of its own, it would puzzle even the Commanding General to lay it down on the map. There is something horrible and yet fascinating in the mystery shrouding this strangest of battles ever fought -- a battle which no man could see -- and whose progress could only be followed by the ear."
-- New York Times correspondent, published May 13, 1864

"So thick were the trees that it was difficult for the men to advance in line and we could seldom see further than a few rods ahead. Before long the scattering fire in front of us had grown more rapid and in a few minutes the skirmishers fall back and though we cannot see them, we know that we have encountered the main body of the enemy. A tempest of bullets cuts the air and the men fall from the ranks like autumn leaves in a November gale. Without any order that I heard, our line paused and in another instant countless tongues of flame leaped from the muzzles of our rifles and speech is drowned by the deafening and unintermitted roar of musketry."
-- Adjutant William Hincks, 14th Connecticut, History of Fourteenth Regiment, C. V. Infantry, pages 236-237

"[The] champion mud hole of mud holes"
-- Union Soldier

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