railroad, without meeting anything of importance to impede our progress.

Having the advantage of position, being on a hill, over a mile from the
railroad, with an entirely open country before us, the river on our
right and a dense wood to the left--we opened on the enemy with shell.
For a very short space of time the rebels stood their ground; but so
accurately did we get the range of their position, rapidly throwing in
the shells, that the enemy broke front and line, and commenced a
precipitate retreat across the river on the railroad bridge. We kept up
our firing with considerable rapidity, and by that means cut off the
retreat of two rebel regiments, who fell back into thick woods on the
other side of the railroad. Colonel Ledlie then moved a battery to
within less than half a mile of the enemy's position. The Ninth New
Jersey was sent, to support the battery, across an open field and
afterwards beyond it, until the regiment got close to the right of the
railroad bridge, and a short distance from the enemy and the river.
While these operations were being carried out, the Seventeenth
Massachusetts, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Fellows, moved to the
left, into the woods, waded through a mill stream, and came out on the
railroad line directly in front of the enemy. By this time and while the
Seventeenth was slowly advancing, the enemy commenced a rapid fire of
shot and shell from a battery concealed in the woods across the river,
and to the left of the bridge, looking from our position, as also from
their iron-clad railroad car, occupying a position on the other side of
the river, close to the entrance to the bridge. At this point they also
had sharpshooters, who tried hard, but did not well succeed in picking
off our men.

By the time the action had become tolerably heavy we heard the whistle
of an approaching train, and soon after learned from prisoners that the
rebel General Pettigrew had just arrived with reinforcements in the way
of a big brigade.

One of our shells was seen to pass along a platform car, thereby
creating so much confusion as to delay General Pettigrew from coming
immediately into action. Having got range of the train, we threw the
shells in so fast that in a little while it moved further off and out of
range of our guns.

The object of General Foster's penetrating so far inland being to
destroy this railroad bridge, he now gave orders to have it burned.
Colonel Heckmann, who got the or