was with great difficulty that we made
our way through the entanglement of tree
tops, saplings, vines, and every other con-
ceivable obstruction, under a heavy fire.”
Within an hour, hundreds of dead and
wounded Confederate soldiers blanketed
the terrain west of Beaver Dam Creek. As
the fighting intensified along the mile-
long front on both sides of Old Church
Road, A.P. Hill was in the middle of it,
hatless, begrimed, and oblivious to dan-
ger as he urged his men forward by per-
sonal example. He failed, however, to uti-
lize the concentrated firepower of his
division’s nine artillery batteries to con-
test the enemy’s guns.
On the far left, despite the withering fire,
some of Anderson’s 35th Georgia troops
doggedly fought their way across the 12-
foot-wide creek and established a beach-
head of sorts, giving the men of the 2nd
Pennsylvania some anxious moments. One
Union officer who faced the Georgians
remembered, “At one time they attackedour right and center at the same time,
boldly pressing on their flags until they
nearly met ours, when the fighting became
of the most desperate character, the flags
rising and falling as they were surged to
and fro by the contending parties.” When
some of Reynolds’s infantrymen ran out of
ammunition, McCall sent forward two
fresh regiments, the 4th Michigan and
14th New York of Brig. Gen. Charles Grif-
fin’s brigade. Meade brought up his four
regiments into line as well.
Under infantry fire and enemy cannon
firing double-shotted canister into their
ranks at close range, the men of the 35th
Georgia were hard pressed to hold their
small piece of captured ground. Men of the
14th and 49th Georgia Regiments strug-
gled mightily to come up in support of
their comrades but were driven back with
appalling losses. Without reinforcements
and ammunition resupply, the survivors of
the 35th Georgia later fell back across the
creek under cover of darkness. On their
right, the men of Archer’s and Field’s
brigades, loading and firing as they
advanced, also suffered terribly under the
withering storm of shot and shell. Neitherbrigade came close to making a dent in the
Union line.
With three of A.P. Hill’s brigades stalled
in front of the Union center and right and
still no sign of Jackson, Lee decided a lit-
tle after 6 PMto send another of Hill’s
brigades to test the Federal left near Eller-
son’s Mill. The assignment fell to Pender’s
brigade, supported by a brigade of D.H.
Hill’s division that had arrived on the field,
commanded by Brig. Gen. Roswell Ripley.
By the time the divisions of D.H. Hill and
Longstreet arrived, there was too much
confusion and too little daylight remain-
ing for Lee to effectively deploy and utilize
them. Pender, one of the Confederacy’s
most promising young officers—he was
awarded a battlefield promotion to
brigadier by Davis for his actions at Seven
Pines—led his exposed units across the
broad plateau and down the slope toward
the creek. As his four North Carolina reg-
iments and a battalion each of Virginians
and Arkansans neared Ellerson’s Mill, they
felt the sting of more than a dozen Union
cannons and supporting infantry fire. A
lone Virginia battery boldly came forward
and was shattered, losing 42 of 92 men.Discarded knapsacks, blankets, shovels, and other
gear lie behind quick-firing Pennsylvania reserves
fighting behind earthworks near Ellerson’s Mill. Bat-
tlefield sketch by Alfred Waud.CWQ-Sum16 Mechanicsville_Layout 1 4/20/16 4:15 PM Page 52