The tree storm-snapped.
Lullaby, lullaby! sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep!"

The smoke drifted toward the moon, the red gun-flashes showed the aisles
of pine and oak. Jackson beckoned imperiously to an aide. "Go tell A. P.
Hill to press forward."

The thunder of the guns ceased suddenly. There was heard a trample of
feet, A. P. Hill's brigades on the turnpike. "Who leads?" asked a voice.
"Lane's North Carolinians," answered another. General Lane came by,
young, an old V. M. I. cadet. He drew rein a moment, saluted. "Push
right ahead, Lane! right ahead!" said Jackson.

A. P. Hill, in his battle shirt, appeared, his staff behind him. "Your
final order, general?"

"Press them, Hill! Cut them off from the fords. Press them!"

A. P. Hill went. From the east, the guns upon his own front now having
quieted, rolled the thunder of those with Lee. The clamour about
Chancellorsville where, in hot haste, Hooker made dispositions, streamed
east and west, meeting and blending with, westward, a like distraction
of forming commands, of battle lines made in the darkness, among
thickets. The moon was high, but not observed; the Wilderness fiercely
chanting. Behind him was Captain Wilbourne of the Signal Corps, two
aides and several couriers, Jackson rode along the Plank road.

There was a regiment drawn across this way through the Wilderness, on
the road and in the woods on either hand. In places in the Wilderness,
the scrub that fearfully burned the next day and the next was even now
afire, and gave, though uncertainly and dimly, a certain illumination.
By it the regiment was perceived. It seemed composed of tall and shadowy
men. "What troops are these?" asked the general.

"Lane's North Carolinians, sir,--the 18th."

As he passed, the regiment started to cheer. He shook his head. "Don't,
men, we want quiet now!"

A very few hundred yards from Chancellorsville he checked Little Sorrel.
The horse stood, fore feet planted. Horse and rider, they stood and
listened. Hooker's reserves were up. About the Chancellor House, on the
Chancellorsville ridge, they were throwing up entrenchments. They were
digging the earth with bayonets, they were heaping it up with their
hands. There was a ringing of axes. They were cutting down the young
spring growth; they were making an abattis. Tones of command could be
heard. "Hurry, hurry--hurry! They mean to rush us. Hurry--hurry!" A dead
creeper mantling a dead tree, caug