bloody repulse, and
rapid retreat. Several times they tried to reach our lines, and every
time failed, then gave it up for the time.

These various assaults took up the time, I should say from ten-thirty to
twelve o'clock. When they were over, the field, and wood in front of us
displayed a most dreadful scene. The field was thickly strewn with the
dead, and wounded. And just along the edge of the wood, where the
advancing lines generally first met our full fire, in the several
assaults, the dead lay so thick and in such regular order, that it
looked to us like a line of battle, lying down. And the poor wounded
fellows lying thickly about! It was frightful to see and to hear them.
It was a bloody business, their oft-repeated effort to take our line.
Their loss was very severe, ours was almost nothing. The Texan Brigade
in all their assaults had several wounded, none killed; at our guns not
a man was hurt.

One thing that struck me in that fighting was the utter coolness of the
Texan infantry. I watched the soldier next to my gun, and can never
forget his bearing. The whizzing bullets, the heavy storming columns
pouring upon us, the yells and cries of the combatants were enough to
excite anybody, but this fellow was just as easy and deliberate as if he
had been shooting at a mark. He would drop the butt of his musket on the
ground and ram down a cartridge, raise the piece to his hip, put on a
cap, cock the hammer, and then, slowly draw the gun up to his eye, and
shoot. I really don't think that Texan fired a shot that day until the
sight on his gun covered a Federal soldier, and I think it likely he hit
a man every time he shot. It was this sort of shooting that made the
carnage in front so terrible.

And what a confident lot they were! After one or two of these lines had
been repulsed, as the enemy were advancing again, you could hear the men
in the line calling one to another, "Say, boys, don't shoot so quick
this time! Let them get up closer. Too many of them get away, when you
start so soon." Truly they were the unterrified! Our line was so thin;
those storming lines of blue as they came storming on seemed _heavy_
enough to roll over us like a tidal wave. Yet it never seemed to occur
to these fellows that they might be run over. Their only thought was to
"let them get up closer next time." Their only concern was that "too
many of them were getting away." Good men, they were, to hold a line!

_At last_, this furiou