he appointed signal, broke forward from the timber, and
five brigades, in one irregular line, charged full against the
enemy's front. The Federals, disposed in several lines, were in
overwhelming strength. Their batteries were free to concentrate on
the advancing infantry. Their riflemen, posted in the interval
between the artillery masses, swept the long slopes with a grazing
fire, while fence, bank, and ravine, gave shelter from the
Confederate bullets. Nor were the enormous difficulties which
confronted the attack in any way mitigated by careful arrangement on
the part of the Confederate staff. The only hope of success, if
success were possible, lay in one strong concentrated effort; in
employing the whole army; in supporting the infantry with artillery,
regardless of loss, at close range; and in hurling a mass of men, in
several successive lines, against one point of the enemy's position.
It is possible that the Federal army, already demoralised by retreat,
might have yielded to such vigorous pressure. But in the Confederate
attack there was not the slightest attempt at concentration. The
order which dictated it gave an opening to misunderstanding; and, as
is almost invariably the case when orders are defective,
misunderstanding occurred. The movement was premature. Magruder had
only two brigades of his three divisions, Armistead's and Wright's,
in position. Armistead, who was well in advance of the Confederate
right, was attacked by a strong body of skirmishers. D.H. Hill took
the noise of this conflict for the appointed signal, and moved
forward. The divisions which should have supported him had not yet
crossed the swamp in rear; and thus 10,500 men, absolutely unaided,
advanced against the whole Federal army. The blunder met with
terrible retribution. On that midsummer evening death reaped a
fearful harvest. The gallant Confederate infantry, nerved by their
success at Gaines' Mill, swept up the field with splendid
determination. "It was the onset of battle," said a Federal officer
present, "with the good order of a review." But the iron hail of
grape and canister, laying the ripe wheat low as if it had been cut
with a sickle, and tossing the shocks in air, rent the advancing
lines from end to end. Hundreds fell, hundreds swarmed back to the
woods, but still the brigades pressed on, and through the smoke of
battle the waving colours led the charge. But the Federal infantry
had yet to be encountered. Lying behind t