Two fresh Southern brigades, in excess of 2,500 men, advanced against fewer than 1,000 Federals. Deployed behind a fence abutting Stratton Street, Col. Charles Coster’s regiments were aligned as follows: the 27th Pennsylvania on the left and the 154th New York in the center (both facing north), and the 134th New York on the right (facing northeast).
Theirs was not a good position. “The ground in our front was higher than at our position, gently rising until, 40 rods away, it was perhaps 20 feet above us and covered with wheat just ready for the sickle,” recalled Pvt. Charles McKay of the 154th New York. The 27th Pennsylvania, populated mainly with German immigrants, found itself in a depression near Stratton Street on the left end of the line. The result of this unfortunate deployment was that its members could only fire at a right oblique angle. In an unnerving turn of events, Coster’s soldiers could hear their veteran enemy approaching in their front but could not see them. The rising terrain to their front extended toward the center of the line, and the colonel of the 154th New York later admitted that his regiment should have advanced and deployed along this high ground, but there was not sufficient time to do so. The Confederates, he wrote, “came down upon us almost before we had got in line.”6
Hit with canister from Heckman’s battery and small arms fire, probably from the 134th New York, Avery’s North Carolinians began taking casualties as soon as they crossed Rock Creek about 200 yards from the Federal position. This fire, however, did nothing to deter their confident advance.
Those who could see the approaching Confederate line of battle never forgot it. One soldier wrote after the war, “it seemed as though they had a battle flag every few rods, which would indicate the formation was in solid column.” The men were ordered to “reserve our fire until the enemy were close enough to make our volley effective.” They did not have long to wait before “the whole line is a blaze of fire.” The 134th New York (on the right of the line) opened fire when the 57th North Carolina tramped within sixty yards of its position.7
When some Federal officers realized that a gap existed between the two New York regiments, a battalion of the 27th Pennsylvania on the left moved quickly to the right to plug the hole. However, in the din of battle only 50 men heard the order and moved to obey it.
Outnumbered almost three to one, Coster’s men somehow managed to hold their ground and fire effective volleys into the advancing Confederates. One Federal soldier estimated that each member of the 154th New York fired six to nine rounds into the enemy’s closely-packed ranks. On the east side of Harrisburg Road, the effect of the fire stopped the advance of the 6th and 21st North Carolina regiments. The 57th North Carolina, on the left flank of Avery’s line, swung farther left to hit the front, flank, and rear of the 134th New York on the right of Coster’s line.
Realizing that they were about to be engulfed by an enemy approaching from beyond their flank, the men of the 134th began drifting away from the firing line. The regiment’s commander, Lt. Col. D. B. Allen, later wrote that the enemy line “so far overlapped the 134th on our right that they swung around almost in their rear, and had such an enfilading fire upon them and our whole line, that that regiment was compelled to give way.”
Many North Carolinians waited until the New Yorkers on the right of the line got up from their prone positions behind the fence. Once fully visible, the Southern infantry shot them as they bolted for the rear. The remainder of the Federal regiment, however, gamely held its ground.8