Private William Blake, Pond's Brigade, on the East Flank....
" We had been driven handily from the East Woods to Bowen's hill. We had been fighting for hours, the woods and fields were filled with the cries of the wounded and the smoke drifted across the fields in great white clouds.
On Bowen's Hill we found the artillery from several several brigades massed into a grand battery, I counted 20 guns in all just to our front. Breckenridge was there, riding to and fro along the lines steadying the men and rallying the shattered regiments. Near the bridge along the Jackson pike, our nearest line of retreat towards the town, another battery had been deployed, with the left most brigades preparing to hold the bridge to the last ditch. To the woods off to the right we could hear the steady rattle of gunfire moving slowly to a point behind our lines.
"Well James, it looks like we stumbled into hell," I said.
"Reckon your right Bill, we'll need Micheal himself to get out of this mess."
On came the Yankee formations in good order, they seemed to fill the whole earth in a blue wave. At about 200 yards out the battery fired and great holes appeared in their lines. But the wave simply returned like an ocean tide, moving ever towards us. At 50 yards the order was given to fire and the wave momentarily halted, then resolving to take our position or die trying the wave came on with a charge. A great bellow issued forth from their lines even as they spat fire from their rifles, 'huuurahhhh,' We met them with the Rebel Yell.
For half an hour they charged the hill, each time getting nearer our lines, finally they paused, gathered themselves up, and we could see this would be the final charge, they would swallow us whole this time.
We didn't get Michael after all. We got Cleburne instead. Just as the Yankees seemed that they would take our position, their fire slackened, men began to look this way and that. From off to the left came the howling of demons, but they were our demons. With rebel yells Cleburne's entire brigade came on into the yankee rear with the bayonet. We could see the general there on his little grey charger, waving his sword and urging his men onwards, from along the whole hill there arose a great cheering which likely will never be equaled on this world until the return of the Lord. The yankee wave recoiled in the opposite direction, back across the fields towards the woods, under the fire of our cannon....."
That Magnificent B*****d
Cleburn's Charge just as it's begining....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/102104509@N08/9822261505/It's the brigade in purple