ed.
The plan was chosen. Lee would open the battle and hold Hooker at close
range. Jackson would "retreat." Out of sight, he would turn, march
swiftly ten miles around their right wing and smash it before sundown.

At five o'clock in the afternoon while Lee held Hooker's front,
Jackson's corps crept into position in Hooker's rear. The shrill note of
a bugle rang from the woods and the yelling gray lines of death swept
down on their unsuspecting foe. Without support the shattered right wing
was crushed, crumpled and rolled back in confusion.

At eight o'clock Jackson, pressing forward in the twilight, was mortally
wounded by his own men and Stuart took his command. The gay, young
cavalier placed himself at the head of Jackson's corps and charged
Hooker's disorganized army. Waving his black plumed hat above his
handsome, bearded face, he chanted with boyish gaiety an improvised
battle song:

"Old Joe Hooker,
Won't you come out o' the Wilderness?"

His men swept the field and as Hooker's army retreated Lee rode to
the front to congratulate Stuart. At sight of his magnificent figure
wreathed in smoke his soldiers went wild. Above the roar of battle rang
their cheers:

"Lee! Lee! Lee!"

From line to line, division to division, the word leaped until the
wounded and the dying joined its chorus.

The picket lines were so close that night in the woods they could talk
to one another. The Southerners were chaffing the Yanks over their many
defeats, when a Yankee voice called through the night his defense of the
war to date:

"Ah, Johnnie, shut up--you make me tired. You're not such fighters as ye
think ye are. Swap generals with us and we'll come over and lick hell
out of you!"

There was silence for a while and then a Confederate chuckled to his
mate:

"I'm damned if they mightn't, too!"

The morning dawned at last after the battle and they began to bury the
dead and care for the wounded. Their agonies had been horrible. Some
had fallen on Friday, thousands on Saturday. It was now Monday. Through
miles of dark, tangled woods in the pouring rain they still lay groaning
and dying.

And over all the wings of buzzards hovered.

The keen eyes of the vultures had watched them fall, poised high as the
battle raged. The woods had been swept again and again by fire. Many of
the bodies were black and charred. Some of the wounded had been burned
to death. Their twisted bodies and distorted features told the story.
Th