wo companies, is not here to-day--and he must have speedy
assistance, or this crest will be lost. Oh, where is Gibbon? where is
Hancock?--some general--anybody with the power and the will to support
that wasting, melting line? No general came, and no succor! I thought of
Hayes upon the right, but from the smoke and war along his front, it was
evident that he had enough upon his hands, if he stayed the in-rolling
tide of the Rebels there. Doubleday upon the left was too far off and
too slow, and on another occasion I had begged him to send his idle
regiments to support another line battling with thrice its numbers, and
this "Old Sumpter Hero" had declined. As a last resort I resolved to see
if Hall and Harrow could not send some of their commands to reinforce
Webb. I galloped to the left in the execution of my purpose, and as I
attained the rear of Hall's line, from the nature of the ground and the
position of the enemy it was easy to discover the reason and the manner
of this gathering of Rebel flags in front of Webb. The enemy, emboldened
by his success in gaining our line by the group of trees and the angle
of the wall, was concentrating all his right against and was further
pressing that point. There was the stress of his assault; there would he
drive his fiery wedge to split our line. In front of Harrow's and Hall's
Brigades he had been able to advance no nearer than when he first halted
to deliver fire, and these commands had not yielded an inch. To effect
the concentration before Webb, the enemy would march the regiment on his
extreme right of each of his lines by the left flank to the rear of the
troops, still halted and facing to the front, and so continuing to draw
in his right, when they were all massed in the position desired, he
would again face them to the front, and advance to the storming. This
was the way he made the wall before Webb's line blaze red with his
battle flags, and such was the purpose there of his thick-crowding
battalions. Not a moment must be lost. Colonel Hall I found just in
rear of his line, sword in hand, cool, vigilant, noting all that passed
and directing the battle of his brigade. The fire was constantly
diminishing now in his front, in the manner and by the movement of the
enemy that I have mentioned, drifting to the right. "How is it going?"
Colonel Hall asked me, as I rode up. "Well, but Webb is hotly pressed
and must have support, or he will be overpowered. Can you assist him?"
"Y