the shelter of every straw stack
in the field, and they stung the new Southern advance, which was already
showing its front. Southern guns now began to search the wheat field.
A shell struck squarely in the center of one of the shocks behind which
three Northern skirmishers were kneeling. Dick saw the straw fly into
the air as if picked up by a whirlwind. When it settled back it lay
in scattered masses and three dark figures lay with it, motionless and
silent. He shuddered and looked away.

The edge of the wood was now lined with Southern infantry, and on their
right flank was a numerous body of cavalry. Officers were waving their
swords aloft, leading the men in person to the charge.

"The attack will be heavy here," said Colonel Winchester. "Ah, there are
our guns firing over our heads. We need 'em."

The Southern cannon were more numerous, but the Northern guns, posted
well on the hill, refused to be silenced. Some of them were dismounted
and the gunners about them were killed, but the others, served with
speed and valor, sprayed the whole Southern front with a deadly shower
of steel.

It was this welcome metal that Dick and his comrades heard over their
heads, and then the trumpets rang a shrill note of defiance along the
whole line. Banks, remembering his bitter defeats and resolved upon
victory now, was not awaiting the attack. He would make it himself.

The whole wing lifted itself up and rushed through the wheat field,
firing as they charged. The cannon were pushed forward and poured in
volleys as fast as the gunners could load and discharge them. Dick
felt the ground reeling beneath his feet, but he knew that they were
advancing and that the enemy was giving way again. Stonewall Jackson and
his generals felt a certain hardening of the Northern resistance that
day. The recruits in blue were becoming trained now. They did not break
in a panic, although their lines were raked through and through by the
Southern shells. New men stepped in the place of the fallen, and the
lines, filled up, came on again.

The Northern wing charging through the wheat field continued to bear
back the enemy. Jackson was not yet able to stop the fierce masses in
blue. A formidable body of men issuing from the Northern side of the
wood charged with the bayonet, pushing the charge home with a courage
and a recklessness of death that the war had not yet seen surpassed. The
Southern rifles and cannon raked them, but they never stopped