The Battle of Malvern Hill
Advance of the Excelsior Regiments
“We reached the field; here were wounded men and the dead, but we heeded them not. We relieved the 7th New York Regiment and poured in a hot fire; still they kept the field, men falling all round, but our only thought was to fire as fast as possible.”
- H. C. Ford, 72nd New York Infantry
The earliest Confederate attacks on this part of the battlefield came from across Western Run, a stream located several hundred yards to the northeast. Men from Couch’s division stopped these attacks without great exertion, but ammunition dwindled and Confederate troops began to accumulate on the edge of the hill.
General Couch called for reinforcements and received six fresh regiments. Two of them, under the supervision of 27-year-old Francis C. Barlow, established a line of battle here in the open field just to the right of this road. They soon were joined by two other regiments from Daniels Sickles’s Excelsior Brigade of New York City.
Colonel Nelson Taylor’s 72nd New York approached the front lines along this very farm lane: “I moved my regiment … up a narrow road on the left of [a] piece of woods until I reached an open field on the right skirted on three sides by woods, and in this field our forces were engaging the enemy …”
Marker can be reached from Willis Church Road (Virginia Route 156) 0.2 miles north of Carter Mills Road, on the left when traveling south.
Courtesy hmdb.org
