, broken only by the chirp of bluebird or the distant call of
the yellowhammer.

Not waiting for the arrival of Longstreet on his forced march from
Gordonsville, Lee suddenly threw the half of his army on Grant's
advancing men with savage energy. Their march was halted and through
every hour of the day and far into the night the fierce conflict raged.
As darkness fell the Confederates had pushed the blue lines back,
captured four guns and a number of prisoners.

But Longstreet had not come and Lee's army of barely forty thousand men
were in a dangerous position before Grant's legions.

Both Generals renewed the fight at daylight. The Federals attacked Lee's
entire line with terrific force. Just as the Confederate right wing was
being crushed and rolled back in disorder, Longstreet reached the field
and threw his men into the breach. Lee himself rode to the front to lead
the charge and reestablish his yielding lines.

From a thousand throats rose the cry:

"Lee to the rear!"

"Go back, General Lee!"

"This is no place for you!"

"We'll settle this!"

The men refused to move until their Commander had withdrawn. And then
with their fierce yell they charged and swept the field.

Lee repeated the brilliant achievement of Jackson at Chancellorsville.
Longstreet was sent around Hancock's left to turn and assail his flank.
The movement was a complete success. Hancock's line was smashed and
driven back a mile to his second defenses.

General Wadsworth at the head of his division was mortally wounded and
fell into the hands of the on-sweeping Confederates. Just as the
movement had reached the moments of its triumph which would have
crumpled Grant's army in confusion back on the banks of the river,
Longstreet fell dangerously wounded, struck down by a volley from his
own men in exactly the same way and almost in the same spot where
Jackson had fallen. General Jenkins, who was with him, was instantly
killed.

The charging hosts were halted by the change of Commanders and the
movement failed of its big purpose, though at sunset General John B.
Gordon broke through Sedgwick's Union lines, rolled back his right
flank, drove him a mile from his entrenchments and captured six hundred
prisoners with two brigadier generals.

The mysterious fate which had pursued the South had once more stricken
down a great commander in the moment of victory, and snatched it from
his grasp--at Shiloh, Albert Sydney Johnston; at Seven Pine