Now
the bridge trembles beneath their steady tread: the foremost are at the
hill, yet no sign of life in the battery. Only the smooth green bank,
the wretched flag in the distance, and those guns charged with death
looking grimly down upon them and waiting. On they come, nearer and
nearer, and now some are on the hill and begin to climb the steep that
forms the defence, slowly and with difficulty, using at times their
rifles as aids like alpenstocks. Not a word is spoken. It is hard to
understand how so many men can move with so little noise. The silence is
that which precedes all dreadful noises. It is ominous, terrible.
Scarcely twenty feet more, and the foremost will reach the rampart.
Haste! haste! The day is won!

Suddenly a figure in gray leaps upon the breastwork: he waves his sword,
utters a short quick word of command, and disappears. It is enough. The
sleeping battery awakes. The silence becomes hideous uproar. The smooth
green line of the sod against the sky is lined with marksmen, and in an
instant fringed with fire. Then the cannon bellow and the breezeless air
is dense with smoke. The attacking column hesitates, trembles, makes a
useless effort to advance, and then falls back beyond the bridge. The
officers endeavor to rally their men and renew the attack at once, but
in vain: flesh and blood cannot stand in such a storm. Nevertheless, the
brave fellows--God bless their memory!--halt at length, and form and
charge once more. And so again and again and again; every time in vain
and with new losses, until at last they cannot rally, but retreat,
broken and bleeding, to the main body of the expedition, carrying with
them such of the wounded and dead as they can snatch from under the fire
of the rebel riflemen. Such was the battle of Bloody Bridge, and well
was it named. Five times that gallant regiment charged the battery, and
when the smoke of battle cleared away the sun shone down upon a piteous
sight--blood dyeing the green of that sodded escarp--blood in great
clots upon the rocks and stumps of the rugged hill below--blood poured
plenteously upon the dusty road, making it horrible with purple
mire--blood staining the bridge and gathering in little pools upon the
planks, and dripping slowly down through the cracks between them into
the sluggish stream, where it floated with the water in great red
clouds, toward which creatures dwelling in slimy depths below came up
lazily, but when they tasted it became fu