As was the uniform custom during the siege, all watches at division and brigade headquarters were set at nine o'clock, by a telegraphic signal, to agree with the adjutant-general's watch.
These final orders for the assault bear the hour of 11.30 P.M. This was in fact the moment at which the earliest copies were sent out by the aides-de-camp, held in readiness to carry them. There were seven hundred and fifty words to be written, and eleven o'clock had already passed when the council listened to the reading of the drafts and broke up. From the lateness of the hour, as well as from the distance and the darkness of the night, it resulted that one o'clock came before the last orders were in the hands of the troops that were to execute them. Many arrangements had still to be carried out and many of the detachments had still to be moved over long distances and by obscure ways to the positions assigned to them. In some instances all that was left of the night was thus occupied, and it was broad daylight before every thing was ready.
A dense fog prevailed in the early morning of Sunday, the 14th of June, strangely veiling, while it lasted, even the sound of the big guns, so that in places it was unheard a hundred yards in the rear. Punctually at the hour fixed the cannonade opened. It was an hour later, that is to say, about four o'clock, when the first attack was launched.
For the chief assault Grover had selected Paine's division and had placed the main body of his own division with Weitzel's brigade, in close support. Paine determined to lead the attack himself. Across his front as skirmishers he deployed the 4th Wisconsin, now again dismounted, and the 8th New Hampshire. The 4th Massachusetts was told off to follow the skirmishers with improvised hand-grenades made of 6-pounder shells. Next the 38th Massachusetts and the 53d Massachusetts were formed into line of battle. At the head of the infantry column the 31st Massachusetts, likewise deployed, carried cotton bags, to fill the ditch. The rest of Gooding's brigade followed, next came Fearing's, then Ingraham's under Ferris. In rear of the column was posted the artillery under Nims. At a point on the crest of the ridge, ninety yards distant from the left face of the priest-cap, Paine's advance was checked. Then Paine, who had previously gone along the front of every regiment, addressing to each a few words of encouragement and of preparation for the work, passed afoot from the head of the column to the front of the skirmish line, and exerting to the full his sonorous voice, gave the order to the column to go in. At the word the men sprang forward, but almost as they did so, the Confederates behind the parapet in their front, with fairly level aim and at point-blank range, poured upon the head of the column a deadly volley. Many fell at this first discharge; among them, unfortunately, the gallant Paine himself, his thigh crushed by a rifle-ball. Some of the men of the 4th Wisconsin, of the 8th New Hampshire, and of the 38th Massachusetts gained the ditch, and a few even climbed the parapet, but of these nearly all were made prisoners. The rear of the column fell back to the cover of the hill, while all those who had gained the crest were forced to lie there, exposed to a pitiless fire of sharp-shooters and the scarcely more endurable rays of the burning sun of Louisiana, until night came and brought relief. In this unfortunate situation the sufferings of the wounded became so unbearable, and appealed so powerfully to the sympathy of their comrades, that many lives were risked and some lost in the attempt to alleviate the thirst, at least, of these unfortunates. Two men, quite of their own accord, took a stretcher and tried to reach the point where Paine lay, but the attempt was unsuccessful, and cost both of them their lives. These heroes were E. P. Woods, of Company E of the 8th New Hampshire, and John Williams, of Company D, 31st Massachusetts. Not less nobly, Patrick H. Cohen, a private soldier of the 133d New York, himself lying wounded on the crest, cut a canteen from the body of a dead comrade and by lengthening the strap succeeded in tossing it within reach of his commander; this probably preserved Paine's life, for unquestionably many of the more seriously hurt perished from the heat and from thirst on that fatal day.