|St. Luke's Episcopal Church|
In close range and often hand to hand fighting, the Confederates positioned behind trees, shrubs, fences and buildings along the south side of the street were the first to give way. Outnumbered and outgunned, the Southern men and boys tried to withdraw down the slope to and beyond Stage Creek. Even though several experienced regular officers and soldiers were present, most of the Confederates were local citizens with little if any miltary training. Their line crumbled as the retreat began.
|Littleton Myrick, killed in battle.|
Seeing their comrades across the street give way, the men along the north side of Lafayette knew they were in serious trouble. Deciding to pull his men back deeper into town, Captain Jesse Norwood of the Marianna Home Guard ordered a withdrawal. The men fell back from their positions along the road into the fenced yard that surrounded St. Luke's Episcopal Church. Norwood evidently planned to pull his men on beyond that point into the buildings that surrounded the downtown area, but the main body of Asboth's flanking party had come in behind them now and they were trapped in and around the church.
|St. Luke's Churchyard, scene of heavy action.|
|Final Home Guard Position|
The order was given and the African American soldiers surged forward in a bayonet charge that went up and over the wooden fence. The home guards were driven back into the cemetery behind the church, but continued such a hot fire that the bayonet charge eventually stalled out. The Union troops now closed in on Norwood's men from three sides (the church forming the fourth). The fighting, however, continued. In fact, it continued so fiercely that some of the Union officers began to wonder if they would be able to dislodge the Confederates from their new position.
I'll post on the final phase of the battle in the next post. If you would like to read about the fight in more detail, please consider my book: The Battle of Marianna, Florida. It is also available as an instant download for both Amazon Kindle and iBooks.
You can also read more at www.battleofmarianna.com.