e heard until the word "Fire!" was given. This would not be
until the Federals were close at hand. In the old Revolutionary phrase,
they must wait "till they saw the whites of their eyes."

On came the long lines, still as steady and precise in movement as if
upon holiday drill. Not a rifle-shot was heard. Neither side had
artillery at this point, and no roar of cannon broke the strange
silence. The awaiting boys in gray grew eager and impatient and had to
be kept in restraint by their officers. "Wait! wait for the word!" was
the admonition. Yet it was hard to lie there while that line of bayonets
came closer and closer, until the eagles on the buttons of the blue
coats could be seen, and at length the front rank was not twenty yards
away.

The time had come. With all the power of his lungs Gordon shouted out
the word "Fire!" In an instant there burst from the prostrate line a
blinding blaze of light, and a frightful hail of bullets rent through
the Federal ranks. Terrible was the effect of that consuming volley.
Almost the whole front rank of the foe seemed to go down in a mass. The
brave commander and his horse fell in a heap together. In a moment he
was on his feet; it was the horse, not the man, that the deadly bullet
had found.

In an instant more the recumbent Confederates were on their feet, an
appalling yell bursting from their throats as they poured new volleys
upon the Federal lines. No troops on earth could have faced that fire
without a chance to reply. Their foes bore unloaded guns. Not a bayonet
had reached the breast for which it was aimed. The lines recoiled,
though in good order for men swept by such a blast of death. Large
numbers of them had fallen, yet not a drop of blood had been lost by one
of Gordon's men.

The gallant man who led the Federals was not yet satisfied that the
bayonet could not break the ranks of his foes. Reforming his men, now in
three lines, he led them again with empty guns to the charge. Again they
were driven back with heavy loss. With extraordinary persistence he
clung to his plan of winning with the bayonet, coming on again and again
until four fruitless charges had been made on Gordon's lines, not a man
in which had fallen, while the Federal loss had been very heavy. Not
until convinced by this sanguinary evidence that the day of the bayonet
was past did he order his men to load and open fire on the hostile
lines. It was an experiment in an obsolete method of warfare whi