flashing
in the gleam of the fading sunlight, urging on their men to still
greater deeds of prowess, and by their individual courage set examples
in heroism never before witnessed on this continent. The assault upon
Mayree's Hill by the Irish Brigade and their compatriots will go down
in history as only equalled by the famous ride of the "Six Hundred at
Hohenlinden," and the "Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava." They
forge their way forward over the heap of dead and dying that now strew
the plain, nearer to the deadly wall than any of the troops before
them. It began to look for the moment as if their undaunted courage
would succeed, but the courage of the defenders of Mayree's Hill
seemed to increase in ardour and determination in proportion to that
of the enemy. The smoke and flame of their battle is now less than one
hundred paces from the wall, but the odds are against them, and they,
too, had to finally yield to the inevitable and leave the field in
great disorder.

From both sides hopes and prayers had gone up that this charge would
prove the last attempt to break our lines. But Humphries met the
shattered columns with a fresh advance. Those who were marching to
enter this maelstrom of carnage were entreated and prayed to by all of
those who had just returned from the sickening scene not to enter this
death trap, and begged them not to throw away their lives in the vain
attempt to accomplish the impossible. But Humphries, anxious of
glory for himself and men, urged on by the imperative orders from
his Commander-in-Chief, soon had his men on the march to the "bloody
wall." But as the sun dropped behind the hills in our rear, the scene
that presented itself in the fading gloom of that December day was
a plain filled with the dead and dying--a living stream of flying
fugitives seeking shelter from the storm of shot and shell by plunging
over the precipitous banks of the river, or along the streets and
protecting walls of the city buildings.

Jackson had pressed all in his front back to the water's edge, while
his batteries, with those of Stuart's, were still throwing shells into
the huddled, panic-stricken, and now thoroughly vanquished army of the
enemy.

That night the Federal Commander-in-Chief sat in his tent alone, and
around him the groans of the wounded and the agonizing wails of the
dying greet his ear--the gentle wind singing a requiem to his dead. He
nursed alone the bitter consciousness of the t