behind them were filled with the long,
sweeping lines of Bragg's infantry, moving swiftly and steadily up to
the attack. They reached their skirmishers, and as the latter fell in
with the main body the whole broke into the peculiar shrill and fitful
yell of the Southern soldiery, and rushed impetuously upon our line.
From behind its barricade Hazen's brigade gave the yelling assailants
two volleys, by front and rear rank, and then, as the enemy staggered
under the regular blows, the command "Load and fire at will!" rang along
the line. Out burst a swift storm of lead, before which the wasting
ranks of the assailants first wavered, and then stopped to open a rapid
but wild and diminishing fire against the barricade. For a moment or two
their colors waved defiantly at their front as their officers rode
among them in the vain endeavor to hold them to the hopeless effort; and
then they turned and vanished into the deep recesses of the forest
whence they came. Not as they came, however, but as a flying multitude
of panic-stricken men, insensible to authority, conscious only of their
defeat and their peril.

Ah! but this was quite different from yesterday's work, thought the men
of Hazen's brigade. It is one thing to march up to an enemy waiting to
receive you on his chosen ground, and another to lie quietly in position
and let your enemy feel his way up until he is within fair range. This
was the thought after the successful defence: before the fight it is a
question whether it does not require greater steadiness of nerve to wait
inactive for an attack than to rush forward in an onslaught. Officers
and men in Palmer's division were in excellent spirits. They saw that
their comrades on the right and the left had met with equally good
fortune. Johnson's division on one side and Reynolds's on the other
remained as steady as rocks.

It was nearly eleven o'clock, and all had prospered with us thus far.
The enemy was getting his share of bloody repulses, of which we had had
more than enough the day before. The attacks upon our line had begun
upon the left, and were traveling toward our right. The two armies were
thus brought together gradually, something after the manner of
scissor-blades when they are slowly closed. The four divisions on the
left had already successfully withstood the shock, which it was to be
supposed the enemy had made as heavy as possible at that point, since
the left was the vital point of the whole line. S