eau. Jackson returned
to his troops. "Fix bayonets! Now, men, charge and take those
batteries!"

The First Brigade rose from beneath the pines. It rose, it advanced
between the moving guns, it shouted. The stone wall became an avalanche,
and started down the slope. It began crescent-wise, for the pine wood
where it had lain curved around Ricketts and Griffin like a giant's
half-closed hand. From the finger nearest the doomed batteries sprang
the 33d Virginia. In the dust of the field all uniforms were now of one
neutral hue. Griffin trained his guns upon the approaching body, but his
chief stopped him. "They're our own, man!--a supporting regiment!" The
33d Virginia came on, halted at two hundred feet, and poured upon the
batteries a withering fire. Alas for Ricketts and Griffin, brave men
handling brave guns! Their cannoneers fell, and the scream of their
horses shocked the field. Ricketts was badly wounded; his lieutenant Ramsay
lay dead. The stone wall blazed again. The Federal infantry supporting
the guns broke and fled in confusion. Other regiments--Michigan
and Minnesota this time--came up the hill. A grey-haired
officer--Heintzleman--seated sideways in his saddle upon a
hillock, appealing, cheering, commanding, was conspicuous for his
gallant bearing. The 33d, hotly pushed, fell back into the curving wood,
only to emerge again and bear down upon the prize of the guns. The whole
of the First Brigade was now in action and the plateau of the Henry Hill
roared like the forge of Vulcan when it welded the armour of Mars. It
was three in the afternoon of midmost July. There arose smoke and shouts
and shrieks, the thunder from the Mathews Hill of the North's uncrippled
artillery, and from the plateau the answering thunder of the Southern,
with the under song, incessant, of the muskets. Men's tongues clave to
the roofs of their mouths, the sweat streamed forth, and the sweat
dried, black cartridge marks were about their lips, and their eyes felt
metallic, heated balls distending the socket. There was a smell of
burnt cloth, of powder, of all heated and brazen things, indescribable,
unforgettable, the effluvia of the battlefield. The palate savoured
brass, and there was not a man of those thousands who was not
thirsty--oh, very, very thirsty! Time went in waves with hollows between
of negation. A movement took hours--surely we have been at it since last
year! Another passed in a lightning flash. We were there beneath the