h running confusedly toward the summit.
Without a word the brigade commander struck spurs into his horse and
dashed up the long slope at a run, closely followed by his enemy and
aid. What they saw when they overtook the straggling, running, panting,
screaming pellmell of the Fourteenth was victory!

The entire right wing of the Confederates, attacked on three sides at
once, placed at enormous disadvantage, completely outgeneraled, had
given way in confusion, was retreating, breaking, and flying. There
were lines yet of dirty gray or butternut; but they were few, meagre,
fluctuating, and recoiling, and there were scattered and scurrying men
in hundreds. Three veteran and gallant regiments had gone all to wreck
under the shock of three similar regiments far more intelligently
directed. A strong position had been lost because the heroes who held it
could not perform the impossible feat of forming successively two fresh
fronts under a concentric fire of musketry. The inferior brain power had
confessed the superiority of the stronger one.

On the victorious side there was wild, clamorous, fierce exultation. The
hurrying, shouting, firing soldiers, who noted their commander riding
among them, swung their rifles or their tattered hats at him, and
screamed "Hurrah!" No one thought of the Confederate dead underfoot, nor
of the Union dead who dotted the slope behind. "What are you here
for, Colonel?" shouted rough old Gildersleeve, one leg of his trousers
dripping blood. "We can do it alone."

"It is a battle won," laughed Fitz Hugh, almost worshiping the man whom
he had come to slay.

"It is a battle won, but not used," answered Waldron. "We haven't a gun
yet, nor a flag. Where is the cavalry? Why isn't Stilton here? He must
have got afoul of the enemy's horse, and been obliged to beat it off.
Can anybody hear anything of Stilton?"

"Let him go," roared Old Grumps. "The infantry don't want any help."

"Your regiment has suffered, Colonel," answered Waldron, glancing at the
scattered files of the Fourteenth. "Halt it and reorganize it, and
let it fall in with the right of the First when Peck comes up. I shall
replace you with the Fifth. Send your Adjutant back to Colburn and tell
him to hurry along. Those fellows are making a new front over there,"
he added, pointing to the centre of the hill. "I want the Fifth, Seventh
and Tenth in _echelon_ as quickly as possible. And I want that cavalry.
Lieutenant," turning to one of hi