attle-field. The field was lost, but still was
struggled for in the face of hope. It was now late in the afternoon, and
the soldiers, exhausted with their desperate exertions, fought on,
doggedly, but without that fiery spirit which earlier in the day had
urged them to the cannon's mouth. There was a lull in the storm of
carnage, the brief pause that precedes the last terrific fury of the
tempest. The Confederates were concentrating their energies for a
decisive effort. It came. From the woods that skirted the left centre of
their position, a squadron of horsemen came thundering down upon our
columns. Right down upon Carlisle's battery they rode, slashing the
cannoneers and capturing the guns. Then followed their rushing ranks of
infantry, and full upon our flank swooped down another troop of cavalry,
dashing into the road where the baggage-train had been incautiously
advanced. Our tired and broken regiments were scattered to the right and
left. In vain a few devoted officers spurred among them, and called on
them to rally; they broke from the ranks in every quarter of the field,
and rushed madly up the hillsides and into the shelter of the trees.
The magnificent army that had hailed the rising sun with hopes of
victory was soon pouring along the road in inextricable confusion and
disorderly retreat. Foot soldier and horseman, field-piece and wagon,
caisson and ambulance, teamster and cannoneer, all were mingled together
and rushing backward from the field they had half won, with their backs
to the pursuing foe. That rout has been traced, to our shame, in
history; the pen of the novelist shuns the disgraceful theme.

Harold, although faint with loss of blood, which oozed from a
flesh-wound in his shoulder, was among the gallant few who strove to
stem the ebbing current; struck at last by a spent ball in the temple,
he fell senseless to the ground. He would have been trampled upon and
crushed by the retreating column, had not a friendly hand dragged him
from the road to a little mound over which spread the branches of an
oak. Here he was found an hour afterward by a body of Confederate troops
and lifted into an ambulance with others wounded and bleeding like
himself.

While the vehicle, with its melancholy freight, was being slowly
trailed over the scene of the late battle, Harold partially recovered
his benumbed senses. He lay there as in a dream, striving to recall
himself to consciousness of his position. He felt the