ch had
proved disastrous to those engaged in it.

[Illustration: GORDON HOUSE.]

In the remaining hours of that desperate conflict Gordon and his men had
another experience to face. The fire from both sides grew furious and
deadly, and at nightfall, when the carnage ceased, so many of the
soldiers in gray had fallen that, as one of the officers afterward said,
he could have walked on the dead bodies of the men from end to end of
the line. How true this was Gordon was unable to say, for by this time
he was himself a wreck, fairly riddled with bullets.

As he tells us, his previous record was remarkably reversed in this
fight, and we cannot better close our story than with a description of
his new experience. He had hitherto seemed almost to bear a charmed
life. While numbers had fallen by his side in battle, and his own
clothing had been often pierced and torn by balls and fragments of
shells, he had not lost a drop of blood, and his men looked upon him as
one destined by fate not to be killed in battle. "They can't hit him;"
"He's as safe in one place as another," form a type of the expressions
used by them, and Gordon grew to have much the same faith in his
destiny, as he passed through battle after battle unharmed.

At Antietam the record was decidedly broken. The first volley from the
Federal troops sent a bullet whirling through the calf of his right leg.
Soon after another ball went through the same leg, at a higher point. As
no bone was broken, he was still able to walk along the line and
encourage his men to bear the deadly fire which was sweeping their
lines. Later in the day a third ball came, this passing through his arm,
rending flesh and tendons, but still breaking no bone. Through his
shoulder soon came a fourth ball, carrying a wad of clothing into the
wound. The men begged their bleeding commander to leave the field, but
he would not flinch, though fast growing faint from loss of blood.

Finally came the fifth ball, this time striking him in the face, and
passing out, just missing the jugular vein. Falling, he lay unconscious
with his face in his cap, into which poured the blood from his wound
until it threatened to smother him. It might have done so but for still
another ball, which pierced the cap and let out the blood.

When Gordon was borne to the rear he had been so seriously wounded and
lost so much blood that his case seemed hopeless. Fortunately for him,
his faithful wife had followed him to