ht by some flying spark, suddenly
flared throughout its length, stood a pillar of fire, and showed redly
the enemy's guns. Stonewall Jackson sat his horse and looked. "Cut them
off from the ford," he said. "Never let them get out of Virginia." He
jerked his hand into the air.

Turning Little Sorrel, he rode back along the Plank road toward his own
lines. The light of the burning brush had sunken. The cannon smoke
floating in the air, the very thick woods, made all things obscure.

"There are troops across the road in front," said an aide.

"Yes. Lane's North Carolinians awaiting their signal."

A little to the east and south broke out in the Wilderness a sudden
rattling fire, sinking, rising, sinking again, the blue and grey
skirmishers now in touch. All through the vast, dark, tangled beating
heart of the place, sprang into being a tension. The grey lines listened
for the word _Advance_! The musket rested on the shoulder, the foot
quivered, eyes front tried to pierce the darkness. Sound was unceasing;
and yet the mind found a stillness, a lake of calm. It was the moment
before the moment.

Stonewall Jackson came toward the Carolinians. He rode quickly, past the
dark shell of a house sunken among pines. There were with him seven or
eight persons. The horses' hoofs made a trampling on the Plank road. The
woods were deep, the obscurity great. Suddenly out of the brush rang a
shot, an accidentally discharged rifle. Some grey soldier among Lane's
tensely waiting ranks, dressed in the woods to the right of the road,
spoke from the core of a fearful dream: "Yankee cavalry!"

"_Fire!_" called an officer of the 18th North Carolina.

The volley, striking diagonally across the road, emptied several
saddles. Stonewall Jackson, the aides and Wilbourne, wheeled to the
left, dug spur, and would have plunged into the wood. "_Fire!_" said the
Carolinians, dressed to the left of the road, and fired.

Little Sorrel, maddened, dashed into the wood. An oak bough struck his
rider, almost bearing him from the saddle. With his right hand from which
the blood was streaming, in which a bullet was imbedded, he caught the
bridle, managed to turn the agonized brute into the road again. There
seemed a wild sound, a confusion of voices. Some one had stopped the
firing. "My God, men! You are firing into _us_!" In the road were the
aides. They caught the rein, stopped the horse. Wilbourne put up his arms.
"General, general! you are not hurt?--