recklessly at every hole
cleft by the plunging shells. Rifles flared in our faces; steel
flashed, as blade or bayonet caught the glare; clubbed muskets fell in
sweep of death; and men, maddened by the fierce passion of war, pushed
and hacked their way against our feeble defence, hurling us back,
stumbling, fighting, cursing, until they also gained foothold with us on
the bloody floor. The memory of it is but hellish delirium, a
recollection of fiends battling in a strange glare, amid stifling smoke,
their faces distorted with passion, their muscles strained to the
uttermost, their only desire to kill. Uniform, organization, were alike
blotted out; we scarcely recognized friend or foe; shoulder to shoulder,
back to back we fought with whatever weapon came to hand. I heard the
crack of rifles; saw the leaping flames of discharge, the dazzle of
plunging steel, the downward sweep of musket stocks. There were crash of
blows, the thud of falling bodies, cries of agony, and yells of
exultation. I was hurled back across the table by the rush, yet fell
upon my feet. The room seemed filled with dead men; I stepped upon them
as I struggled for the door. There were others with me--who, or how
many, I knew not. They were but grim, battling demons, striking,
gouging, firing. I saw the gleam of knives, the gripping of fingers, the
mad outshooting of fists. I was a part of it, and yet hardly realized
what I was doing. I had lost all consciousness save the desire to
strike. I know I shouted orders into the din, driving my carbine at
every face fronting me; I know others came through the smoke cloud, and
we hurled them back, fairly cleaving a lane through them to the hall
door. I recall stumbling over dead bodies, of having a wounded man
clutch at my legs, of facing that mob with whirling gun stock until the
last fugitive was safely behind me, and then being hurled back against
the wall by sudden rush.

How I got there I cannot tell, but I was in the hall, my clothing a mass
of rags, my body aching from head to foot, and still struggling. About
me were men, my own men--pressed together back to back, meeting as best
they could the tide pouring against them from two sides. Remorselessly
they hurled us back, those behind pushing the front ranks into us. We
fought with fingers, fists, clubbed revolvers, paving the floor with
bodies, yet inch by inch were compelled to give way, our little circle
narrowing, and wedged tighter against the wall