e Franklin upon the
flank, while, brigade by brigade, the rest of the division followed by
that ford. Rout Franklin, and push forward to help A. P. Hill. It had
appeared his duty to give the information he was possessed of. He had
given it, and his skirts were cleared. There was anger in him as he
turned away; he had a compressed lip, a sparkling eye. Not till he
turned did he see Stafford, sitting his horse in the shadow behind
Jackson. The two men stared full at each other for a perceptible moment.
But Stafford's face was in the shadow, and as for Cleave his mind was
full of anger for the tragedy of the inaction. At the moment he gave
small attention to his own life, its heights or depths, past or future.
He saw Stafford, but he could not be said to consider him at all. He
turned from the road into the wood, and pushed the great bay over spongy
ground toward the isolated 65th. Stafford saw that he gave him no
thought, and it angered him. On the highroad of his life it would not
have done so, but he had left the road and was lost in the jungle. There
were few things that Richard Cleave might do which would not now work
like madness on the mind astray in that place.

The cannonading over White Oak Swamp continued, and the sound of the
battle of Frayser's Farm continued. On a difficult and broken ground
Longstreet attacked, driving back McCall's division. McCall was
reinforced and Longstreet hard pressed. Lee loosed A. P. Hill, and the
battle became furious. He looked for Jackson, but Jackson was at White
Oak Swamp; for Huger, but a road covered with felled trees delayed
Huger; for Magruder, but in the tangle of wood and swamp Magruder, too,
went astray; for Holmes, but Fitz John Porter held Holmes in check.
Longstreet and A. P. Hill strove unsupported, fifty thousand grey troops
in hearing of their guns. The battle swayed to and fro, long, loud, and
sanguinary, with much hand-to-hand work, much use of bayonets, and,
over all, a shriek of grape and canister.

Back on White Oak Swamp, Franklin on the southern side, Jackson on the
northern, blue and grey alike caught the noise of battle. They
themselves were cannonading loudly and continuously. One Federal battery
used fifteen hundred rounds. The grey were hardly less lavish. Not much
damage was done except to the trees. The trough through which crept the
sluggish water was filled with smoke. It drifted through the swamp and
the woods and along the opposing hillsides. It