Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[733] then at double quick they dashed up to the first line of abatis. The axemen laid to, vigorously chopping out the obstructions. Many of them went down. Others seized the axes. The enemy concentrated their fire upon the head of the column. It looked at one moment as if it might melt away. The colors of the first battalion went down, but instantly they were up again but with new color bearers. Wonderfully they managed to brush aside the abatis, and then at double quick the re-formed column charged the second line of abatis. Fortunately they were able to remove that in a few minutes, but it seemed a long time to the lookers on. Then, with a cheer and a yell that I can almost hear now, they dashed upon the fort. But before they reached even the ditch, which was not a formidable thing, the enemy ran away and did not stop until they had run four miles, I believe. They were only fired at as they ran away, and did not lose a man.

As I rode across the brook and up towards the fort along this line of charge, some eighty feet wide and three or four hundred yards long, there lay in my path five.hundred and forty-three dead and wounded of my colored comrades. And, as I guided my horse this way and that way that his hoof might not profane their dead bodies, I swore to myself an oath, which I hope and believe I have kept sacredly, that they and their race should be cared for and protected by me to the extent of my power so long as I lived.

When I reached the scene of their exploit their ranks broke, but it was to gather around their general. They almost dragged my horse up alongside the cannon they had captured, and I felt in my inmost heart that the capacity of the negro race for soldiers had then and there been fully settled forever.

Meanwhile the white troops under Birney had advanced up the Newmarket road in the direction indicated by his orders without meeting any force except a few skirmishers and pickets who fled before him, and occupied the abandoned line of the enemy's intrenchments, which had been carried by the colored division.

Not long after I joined Birney, neither of us having heard anything from the operations of Ord, Captain DeKay, my aid who had accompanied General Ord so that he might communicate to me when desirable, rode up with haste and informed me that General Ord had been very eminently successful; that with his troops of the Eighteenth