sh and a brief, slight confusion. The
voice of an officer rose sharply out of the flurry, "Close up, Company
A! Forward, men!" The battalion column resumed its even formation in an
instant, and tramped unitedly onward, leaving behind it two quivering
corpses and a wounded man who tottered rearward.

Then came more screeches, and a shell exploded over the highroad,
knocking a gunner lifeless from his carriage. The brigade commander
glanced anxiously along his batteries, and addressed a few words to his
chief of artillery. Presently the four Napoleons set forward at a gallop
for the wood, while the four Parrotts wheeled to the right, deployed,
and advanced across the fields, inclining toward the left of the enemy.
Next Taylor's regiment (the Eighth) halted, fronted, faced to the right,
and filed off in column of march at a double-quick until it had gained
the rear of the Parrotts, when it fronted again, and pushed on in
support. A quarter of a mile further on these guns went into battery
behind the brow of a little knoll, and opened fire. Four companies
of the Eighth spread out to the right as skirmishers, and commenced
stealing toward the ridge, from time to time measuring the distance with
rifle-balls. The remainder of the regiment lay down in line between
the Parrotts and the forest. Far away to the right, five companies of
cavalry showed themselves, manoeuvring as if they proposed to turn the
left flank of the Southerners. The attack on this side was in form and
in operation.

Meantime the Confederate fire had divided. Two guns pounded away at
Taylor's feint, while two shelled the main column. The latter was struck
repeatedly; more than twenty men dropped silent or groaning out of
the hurrying files; but the survivors pushed on without faltering and
without even caring for the wounded. At last a broad belt of green
branches rose between the regiments and the ridge; and the rebel
gunners, unable to see their foe, dropped suddenly into silence.

Here it appeared that the road divided. The highway traversed the
forest, mounted the slope beyond and dissected the enemy's position,
while a branch road turned to the left and skirted the exterior of the
long curve of wooded hillocks. At the fork the battery of Napoleons had
halted, and there it was ordered to remain for the present in quiet.
There, too, the Fourteenth filed in among the dense greenery, threw out
two companies of skirmishers toward the ridge, and pushed slow