White
and Ewing charged over the open under a destructive fire of musketry
and shrapnel. As Ewing approached the enemy's battery (Bondurant's),
it gave him a parting salvo, and limbered rapidly toward the right
along a road in the edge of the woods which follows the summit to
the turnpike near the Mountain House at Turner's Gap. White's men
never flinched, and the North Carolinians of Garland's brigade (for
it was they who held the ridge at this point) poured in their fire
till the advancing line of bayonets was in their faces when they
broke away from the wall. Our men fell fast, but they kept up their
pace, and the enemy's centre was broken by a heroic charge. Garland
strove hard to rally his men, but his brigade was hopelessly broken
in two. He rallied his right wing on the second ridge a little in
rear of that part of his line, but Hayes's regiment was here pushing
forward from our left. Colonel Ruffin of the Thirteenth North
Carolina held on to the ridge road beyond our right, near Fox's Gap.
The fighting was now wholly in the woods, and though the enemy's
centre was routed there was stubborn resistance on both flanks. His
cavalry dismounted (said to be under Colonel Rosser [Footnote:
Stuart's Report, Official Records, vol.
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