in hand. Jackson had seen the charge, and
Forno's Louisianians, with a regiment of Lawton's, had already been
sent forward with the bayonet.

In close order the counterstroke came on. The thinned ranks of the
Federals could oppose no resolute resistance. Fighting they fell
back, first to the embankment, where for a few moments they held
their own, and then to the wood. But without supports it was
impossible to rally. Johnson's and Starke's brigades swept down upon
their flank, the Louisianians, supported by Field and Archer, against
their front, and in twenty minutes, with a loss of one-fourth his
numbers, Grover in his turn was driven beyond the Warrenton turnpike.

Four divisions, Schurz', Steinwehr's, Hooker's, and Reno's, had been
hurled in succession against Jackson's front. Their losses had been
enormous. Grover's brigade had lost 461 out of 2000, of which one
regiment, 288 strong, accounted for 6 officers and 106 men; three
regiments of Reno's lost 530; and it is probable that more than 4000
men had fallen in the wood which lay in front of Hill's brigades.

The fighting, however, had not been without effect on the
Confederates. The charges to which they had been exposed, impetuous
as they were, were doubtless less trying than a sustained attack,
pressed on by continuous waves of fresh troops, and allowing the
defence no breathing space. Such steady pressure, always increasing
in strength, saps the morale more rapidly than a series of fierce
assaults, delivered at wide intervals of time. But such pressure
implies on the part of the assailant an accumulation of superior
force, and this accumulation the enemy's generals had not attempted
to provide. In none of the four attacks which had shivered against
Hill's front had the strength of the assailants been greater than
that of his own division; and to the tremendous weight of such a
stroke as had won the battles of Gaines' Mill or Cedar Run, to the
closely combined advance of overwhelming numbers, Jackson's men had
not yet been subjected.

The battle, nevertheless, had been fiercely contested, and the strain
of constant vigilance and close-range fighting had told on the Light
Division. The Federal skirmishers, boldly advancing as Pender's men
fell back, had once more filled the wood, and their venomous fire
allowed the defenders no leisure for repose.* (* "The Federal
sharpshooters at this time," says Colonel McCrady, of the Light
Division, "held possession of