sent vast sheets of bullets.

But the Northern leader was gone. As Hooker leaned against a pillar in
the portico of the Chancellor House a shell struck it over his head,
the concussion being so violent that he was thrown to the floor, stunned
and severely injured. He was carried away, unconscious, but the brave
and able generals under him still sustained the battle, and had no
thought of yielding.

The Southern army, Lee and Stuart in unison, never ceased to push the
attack. The forces were now drawing closer together. The lines were
shorter and deeper. The concentrated fire on both sides was appalling.
Bushes and saplings fell in the Wilderness as if they had been levelled
with mighty axes.

Harry saw a vast bank of fire and smoke and then he saw shooting above
it pyramids and spires of flame. The Chancellor House and all the
buildings near it, set on fire by the flames, were burning fiercely,
springing up like torches to cast a lurid light over that scene of death
and destruction. Then the woods, despite their spring sap and greenness,
caught fire under the showers of exploding shells, and their flames
spread along a broad front.

The defense made by the Union army was long and desperate. No men could
have shown greater valor, but they had been surprised and from the first
they had been outgeneralled. An important division of Hooker's army had
not been able to get into the main battle. The genius of Lee gathered
all his men at the point of contact and the invisible figure of Jackson
still rode at the head of his men.

For five hours the battle raged, and at last the repeated charges of the
Southern troops and the deadly fire of their artillery prevailed.

The Northern army, its breastworks carried by storm, was driven out of
Chancellorsville and, defeated but not routed, began its slow and sullen
retreat. Thirty thousand men killed or wounded attested the courage and
endurance with which the two sides had fought.

The Army of the Potomac, defeated but defiant and never crushed by
defeat, continued its slow retreat to Fredericksburg, and for a little
space the guns were silent in the Wilderness.

The men of Hooker, although surprised and outgeneralled, had shown great
courage in battle, and after the defeat of Chancellorsville the retreat
was conducted with much skill. Lee had been intending to push another
attack, but, as usual after the great battles of the Civil War,
Chancellorsville was followe