t on the gentle slope in front, down which the
confederates must charge, the background of the slope brought them in
bold relief--gray targets for the guns. On that background the hare
would loom up as big as the hound.

There were really two federal lines, an outer and an inner one. The
outer one consisted of Bradley's and Lane's brigades which had
retired from Spring Hill before the Confederate army, and had been
ordered to halt in front of the breastworks to check the advance of
the army. They were instructed to fire and then fall back to the
breastworks, if stubbornly charged by greatly their superiors in
numbers. They fired, but, true to American ideas, they disliked to
retreat. When forced to do so, they were swept away with the enemy on
their very heels and as they rushed in over the last line at the
breastworks on the Columbia pike the eager boys in gray rushed over
with them, swept away portions of Reilly's and Strickland's troops,
and bayoneted those that remained.

It was then that Schofield's heart sank as he looked down from the
guns of the fort. But Cox had the forethought to place Opdyck's two
thousand men in reserve at this very point. These sprang gallantly
forward and restored the line.

They saved the Union army!

The battle was now raging all around the line. There was a succession
of yells, a rattle, a shock and a roar, as brigade after brigade
struck the breastworks, only to be hurled back again or melt and die
away in the trenches amid the abatis. Clear around the line of
breastworks it rolled, at intervals, like a magazine of powder
flashing before it explodes, then the roar and upheaval, followed
anon and anon by another. The ground was soon shingled with dead men
in gray, while down in the ditches or hugging the bloody sides of the
breastworks right under the guns, thousands, more fortunate or daring
than their comrades, lay, thrusting and being thrust, shooting and
being shot. And there they staid throughout the fight--not strong
enough to climb over, and yet all the guns of the federal army could
not drive them away. Many a gray regiment planted its battle-flag on
the breastworks and then hugged those sides of death in its efforts
to keep it there, as bees cling around the body of their queen.

"I have the honor to forward to the War Department nine stands of
colors," writes General Cox to General Geo. L. Thomas; "these flags
with eleven others were captured by the Twenty-third Army Cor