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“at the post of danger” only three months after the Reams Station debacle, Winfield Hancock’s command faced another crisis at the Boydton Plank Road. in the wake of Mahone’s attack , conditions had turned grim. The assault had nearly stranded egan’s division at the Burgess Farm. gershom Mott’s command, at the dabney Mill Road, operated with only one functioning brigade. to the southwest, general gregg’s cavalry continued to tangle with Rooney’s lee’s horsemen. The Confederates threatened to sever Hancock from the rest of the Union army. Hancock and his officers strained to regain control and bring “order out of chaos.”1 “general Hancock was at all times at the post of danger,” a Maine veteran recalled, “and gave his personal attention to affairs.”2 “at times there was firing on all sides, every road being closed by the enemy,” wrote a member of the Second Corps staff.3 at the height of the attack, another staffer found Hancock positioning reserves and, in a clear and distinct voice, ordering batteries to fire on the rebels.4 at one point, according to a post-war recollection, the general ordered a group of soldiers to throw up breastworks. one man turned to his corps commander and exclaimed, “We have no shovels!” “Use tin plates, canteens, sticks— anything, but throw up works!” came Hancock’s reply. “general, will you kindly tell us which side of the breastwork to get on after it is made?” Hancock simply smiled and rode off.5 But Hancock recognized an opportunity to reverse Mahone’s success. The rebel brigades had swept through the middle of his position, and some enemy troops had even crossed the cornfield, piled over the Plank Road and penetrated the woods beyond. The audacious attack deformed Mahone’s solid battle lines into scattered pockets and squads. Hancock prepared his command to smash the rebels. 259 Chapter 16 The Second Corps Redeemed • 260 richmond must fall “give them a shell!” Hancock and his officers coordinated a swift and comprehensive response to Mahone ’s attack by landing blows in two sectors. From the north at egan’s position, Colonel Robert Mcallister’s brigade turned away from Hatcher’s Run to lunge south against the north Carolinians. From the south, Mott regrouped his splintered division and formed against the virginians. These two counterpunches occurred almost simultaneously and ensured that the debacle of Reams Station would not be repeated. at the first signs of Mahone’s attack, Hancock dispatched Major W. g. Mitchell to cancel egan’s strike at Burgess Mill and order that division to turn rearward and repulse the rebel breakthrough. as Mitchell galloped along the Plank Road, he witnessed Mahone’s force cresting the cornfield off to his right. Reaching the Burgess house, he found egan already scrambling to blunt Mahone’s assault.6 one brigade, led by Robert Mcallister, a “Puritanical man, not brilliant of intellect, but an indomitable fighter,” waited in reserve at egan’s position. Mcallister’s unit, part of Mott’s division but assigned that afternoon to help egan, numbered nearly as many muskets as egan’s entire force. However, many of Mcallister’s men were green—they had “never fired a gun and had had but very little drill.”7 in response to Mahone’s attack, Mcallister simply turned his line around and charged, forgoing a more conventional but intricate maneuver that would surely have left his raw troops in disarray.8 The advancing line, which included the 120th new York, 8th new Jersey, and 11th Massachusetts aimed for MacRae’s north Carolinians . as Mcallister kept two of his regiments, the 5th and 7th new Jersey, in reserve . He also ordered part of the 11th new Jersey to protect his left flank.9 His men rushed down the hill, over the swampy ground, through the hazel brush, and up toward the cornfield. The 11th new Jersey outdistanced its sister regiments, reached a portion of the cornfield, and recaptured Metcalf’s abandoned guns. However, the Confederate veterans poured a withering fire into Mcallister’s ranks.10 at the edge of the woods, Mahone watched as MacRae’s men faltered under a “heavy fire.” He immediately ordered the alabama brigade from its reserve position to bolster MacRae’s flank.11 Horace King’s alabamians ratcheted up the pressure on Mcallister, and, according to several Union reports, a rebel squad strained to roll a battery out from the tree line.12 The rebel response overwhelmed Mcallister’s men...

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