onewall Jackson's army.
"It's a fight, face to face," Dick heard Colonel Winchester say.
Then he saw a Union officer, whose name he did not know suddenly gallop
out in front of the division, wave his saber over his head and shout
the charge. A tremendous rolling cry came from the blue ranks and Dick
physically felt the whole division leap forward and rush at the enemy.
Dick saw the officer who had made himself the leader of the charge
gallop straight at a breastwork that the Southerners had built, reach
and stand, horse and rider, a moment at the top, then both fall in
a limp heap. The next instant the officer, not dead but wounded, was
dragged a prisoner behind the embankment by generous foes who had
refused to shoot at him until compelled to do so.
The Union men, with a roar, followed their champion, and Dick felt a
very storm burst upon them. The Southerners had thrown up earthworks at
midnight and thousands of riflemen lying behind them sent in a fire at
short range that caused the first Union line to go down like falling
grain. Cannon from the wood and elsewhere raked them through and
through.
It was a vortex of fire and death. The Confederates themselves were
losing heavily, but taught by the stern Jackson and knowing that his eye
was upon them they refused to yield. The Northern charge broke on their
front, but the men did not retreat far. The shrill trumpet called them
back to the charge, and once more the blue masses hurled themselves upon
the barrier of fire and steel, to break again, and to come yet a third
time at the trumpet's call. Often the combatants were within ten yards
of one another, but strive as they would the Union columns could not
break through the Confederate defense.
Elsewhere the men of Hill and Longstreet showed a sternness and valor
equal to that of Jackson's. Their ranks held firm everywhere, and now,
as the long afternoon drew on, the eye of Lee, watching every rising
and falling wave of the battle, saw his chance. He drew his batteries
together in great masses and as the last charge broke on Jackson's lines
the trumpets sounded the charge for the Southern troops who hitherto had
stood on the defensive.
Dick heard a tremendous shout, the great rebel yell, that he had heard
so often before, and that he was destined to hear so often again.
Through the clouds of smoke and dust he saw the long lines of Southern
bayonets advancing swiftly. His regiment, which had already lost mor
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