o companies over by the skin of our teeth. They drove in some pickets
on the other side. Road through the swamp over there covered by felled
trees. Beyond is a small meadow and beyond that rising ground, almost
free of trees. There are Yankee batteries on the crest, and a large
force of infantry lying along the side of the ridge. They command the
meadow and the swamp."

So tall were the trees, so thick the undergrowth, so full the midsummer
foliage that the guns, thundering at each other across the narrow
stream, never saw their antagonists. Sharpshooters and skirmishers were
as hidden. Except as regarded the pioneers striving with the bridge,
neither side could see the damage that was done. The noise was
tremendous, echoing loudly from the opposing low ridges and rolling
through the swamp. The hollow filled with smoke; above the treetops a
dull saffron veil was drawn across the sky. The firing was without
intermission, a monotonous thunder, beneath which the working party
strove spasmodically at the bridge, the cavalry chafed to and fro, and
the infantry, filling all the woods and the little clearings to the
rear, began to swear. "Is it the Red Sea down there? Why can't we cross
without a bridge? Nobody's going to get drowned! Ain't more'n a hundred
men been drowned since this war began! O Great Day in the Morning! I'm
tired of doing nothing!"

General Wade Hampton of D. H. Hill's division, leaving his brigade in a
pine wood, went with his son and with an aide, Rawlins Lowndes, on a
reconnoitring expedition of his own. He was a woodsman and hunter, with
experience of swamps and bayous. Returning, he sought out Jackson, and
found him sitting on a fallen pine by the roadside near the slowly,
slowly mending bridge. Hampton dismounted and made his report. "We got
over, three of us, general, a short way above. It wasn't difficult. The
stream's clear of obstructions there and has a sandy bottom. We could
see through the trees on the other side. There's a bit of level, and a
hillside covered with troops--a strong position. But we got across the
stream, sir."

"Yes. Can you make a bridge there?"

"I can make one for infantry, sir. Not, I think, for the artillery.
Cutting a road would expose our position."

"Very good. Make the bridge, general."

Hampton's men cut saplings and threw a rude foot-bridge across the
stream where he had traversed it. He returned and reported. "They are
quiet and unsuspecting beyond, sir. The