ck from Barton's Woods into the
ragged old field, reeled the 27th Virginia. Its colonel, Colonel John
Echols, was down; badly hurt and half carried now by his men; there were
fifty others, officers and men, killed or wounded. The wounded, most of
them, were helped back by their comrades. The dead lay where they fell
in Barton's Woods, where the arbutus was in bloom and the purple
violets.

The 21st swept forward. The 27th rallied, joined the 21st. The two
charged the wood that was now filling with clouds of blue skirmishers.
Behind came hurrying Garnett with the 2d, the 4th, and the 33d.

Fulkerson on the left, facing Tyler, had two regiments, the 23d and 37th
Virginia. He deployed his men under cover, but now they were out in a
great and ragged field, all up and down, with boggy hollows, scarred too
by rail fences and blurred by low-growing briar patches. Diagonally
across it, many yards away, ran one of the stone fences of the region, a
long dike of loosely piled and rounded rock. Beyond it the ground kept
the same nature, but gradually lifted to a fringe of tall trees.
Emerging from this wood came now a Federal line of battle. It came with
pomp and circumstance. The sun shone on a thousand bayonets; bright
colours tossed in the breeze, drums rolled and bugles blew. Kimball,
commanding in Shields's absence, had divined the Confederate intention.
He knew that the man they called Stonewall Jackson meant to turn his
right, and he began to mass his regiments, and he sent for Sullivan from
the left.

The 23d and 37th Virginia eyed the on-coming line and eyed the stone
fence. "That's good cover!" quoth a hunter from the hills. "We'd a long
sight better have it than those fellows!--Sh! the colonel's speaking."

Fulkerson's speech was a shout, for there had arisen a deafening noise
of artillery. "Run for your lives, men--toward the enemy! Forward, and
take the stone fence!"

The two regiments ran, the Federal line of battle ran, the stone cover
the prize. As they ran the grey threw forward their muskets and fired.
That volley was at close range, and it was discharged by born marksmen.
The grey fired again; yet closer. Many a blue soldier fell; the
colour-bearer pitched forward, the line wavered, gave back. The charging
grey reached and took the wall. It was good cover. They knelt behind it,
laid their musket barrels along the stones, and fired. The blue line
withstood that volley, even continued its advance, but a second