cry. "Steady, men!
steady! Hooker hasn't had enough!" Edward, too, saw the blue wall coming
through the woods on the other side of the railroad. He took a musket
from a dead man near by and with all the other grey soldiers lay flat in
the grass above the cut. Hooker came within range--within close range.
The long grey front sprang to its feet and fired, dropped and loaded,
rose and fired. A leaden storm visited the wood across the track. The
August grass was long and dry. Sparks set it afire. Flames arose and
caught the oak scrub. Through it all and through the storm of bullets
the blue line burst. It came down on the unfinished track, it crossed,
it leaped up the ten-foot bank of earth, it clanged against the grey
line atop. The grey gave back, the colours fell and rose; the air
rocked, so loud was the din. Stonewall Jackson appeared. "General Hill,
order in your second line." Field's Virginians, Thomas's Georgians
charged forward. They yelled, all their rifles flashed at once, they
drove Hooker down into the cut, across the track, up into the burning
brushwood and the smoke-filled woods. But the blue were staunch and
seasoned troops; they reformed, they cheered. Hooker brought up a fresh
brigade. They charged again. Down from the woods plunged the blue wave,
through the fire, down the bank, across and up. Again din and smoke and
flame, all invading, monstrous. Jackson's voice rose higher. "General
Hill, order in General Pender."

North Carolina was, first and last, a stark fighter. Together with Gregg
and Field and Thomas, Pender drove Hooker again down the red escarpment,
across the railroad, through the burning brush, into the wood; even
drove him out of the wood, took a battery and dashed into the open
beyond. Then from the hills the blue artillery opened and from the
plains below volleyed fresh infantry. Pender was borne back through the
wood, across the railroad, up the red side of the cut.

Hooker had a brigade in column behind a tree-clad hill. Screened from
sight it now moved forward, swift and silent, then with suddenness broke
from the wood in a splendid charge. With a gleam of bayonets, with a
flash of colours, with a loud hurrah, with a staggering volley its
regiments plunged into the cut, swarmed up the red side and fell upon A.
P. Hill's weakened lines. The grey wavered. Stonewall Jackson's voice
was heard again. "General Hill, I have ordered up Forno from the right
and a regiment of Lawton's." He jerke