escape, on finding their
lines broken through, or even to avoid the blow.

As was the uniform custom during the siege, all watches at division
and brigade headquarters were set at nine o'clock, by a telegraphic
signal, to agree with the adjutant-general's watch.

These final orders for the assault bear the hour of 11.30 P.M.
This was in fact the moment at which the earliest copies were sent
out by the aides-de-camp, held in readiness to carry them. There
were seven hundred and fifty words to be written, and eleven o'clock
had already passed when the council listened to the reading of the
drafts and broke up. From the lateness of the hour, as well as
from the distance and the darkness of the night, it resulted that
one o'clock came before the last orders were in the hands of the
troops that were to execute them. Many arrangements had still to
be carried out and many of the detachments had still to be moved
over long distances and by obscure ways to the positions assigned
to them. In some instances all that was left of the night was thus
occupied, and it was broad daylight before every thing was ready.

A dense fog prevailed in the early morning of Sunday, the 14th of
June, strangely veiling, while it lasted, even the sound of the
big guns, so that in places it was unheard a hundred yards in the
rear. Punctually at the hour fixed the cannonade opened. It was
an hour later, that is to say, about four o'clock, when the first
attack was launched.

For the chief assault Grover had selected Paine's division and had
placed the main body of his own division with Weitzel's brigade,
in close support. Paine determined to lead the attack himself.
Across his front as skirmishers he deployed the 4th Wisconsin, now
again dismounted, and the 8th New Hampshire. The 4th Massachusetts
was told off to follow the skirmishers with improvised hand-grenades
made of 6-pounder shells. Next the 38th Massachusetts and the 53d
Massachusetts were formed into line of battle. At the head of the
infantry column the 31st Massachusetts, likewise deployed, carried
cotton bags, to fill the ditch. The rest of Gooding's brigade
followed, next came Fearing's, then Ingraham's under Ferris. In
rear of the column was posted the artillery under Nims. At a point
on the crest of the ridge, ninety yards distant from the left face
of the priest-cap, Paine's advance was checked. Then Paine, who
had previously gone along the front of every regiment,