led trees. Behind the breastwork and on
the plateau rested Fitz John Porter, reinforced during the night by
Slocum, and now commanding thirty-five thousand disciplined and
courageous troops. Twenty-two batteries frowned upon the plain below.
The Federal drums were beating--beating--beating. The grey soldiers lay
down in the woods and awaited orders. They felt, rather than saw, that
other troops were all about them,--A. P. Hill--Longstreet--couched in
the wide woods, strung in the brush that bordered creek and swamp,
massed in the shelter of the few low knolls.

They waited long. The sun blazed high and higher. Then a grey battery,
just in front of this strip of woods, opened with a howitzer. The shell
went singing on its errand, exploded before one of the triple tiers. The
plateau answered with a hundred-pounder. The missile came toward the
battery, overpassed it, and exploded above the wood. It looked as large
as a beehive; it came with an awful sound, and when it burst the
atmosphere seemed to rock. The men lying on the earth beneath jerked
back their heads, threw an arm over their eyes, made a dry, clicking
sound with their tongue against their teeth. The howitzer and this shell
opened the battle--again A. P. Hill's battle.

Over in the forest on the left, near Cold Harbour, where Stonewall
Jackson had his four divisions, his own, D. H. Hill's, Ewell's, and
Whiting's, there was long, long waiting. The men had all the rest they
wanted, and more besides. They fretted, they grew querulous. "Oh, good
God, why don't we move? There's firing--heavy firing--on the right. Are
we going to lie here in these swamps and fight mosquitoes all day?
Thought we were brought here to fight Yankees! The general walking in
the forest and saying his prayers?--Oh, go to hell!"

A battery, far over on the edge of a swamp, broke loose, tearing the
sultry air with shell after shell tossed against a Federal breastwork on
the other side of the marsh. The Stonewall Brigade grew vividly
interested. "That's D. H. Hill over there! D. H. Hill is a fighter from
way back! O Lord, why don't we fight too? Holy Moses, what a racket!"
The blazing noon filled with crash and roar. Ten of Fitz John Porter's
guns opened, full-mouthed, on the adventurous battery.

It had nerve, _elan_, sheer grit enough for a dozen, but it was
out-metalled. One by one its guns were silenced,--most of the horses
down, most of the cannoneers. Hill recalled it. A little later h