lderness. It seemed an inspiration to
every man in line, especially his old brigade, who knew too well that
their conduct to-day would either win or lose him his Major General's
spurs, and right royally did he gain them. The columns were not yet
in proper order, but the needs so pressing to check the advance of the
enemy, that a forward movement was ordered, and the lines formed up as
the troops marched.

The second moved forward on the left of the plank road, in support
of a battery stationed there, and which was drawing a tremendous fire
upon the troops on both sides of the road. Down the gentle slope
the brigade marched, over and under the tangled shrubbery and dwarf
sapplings, while a withering fire was being poured into them by as yet
an unseen enemy. Men fell here and there, officers urging ion their
commands and ordering them to "hold their fire." When near the lower
end of the declivity, the shock came. Just in front of us, and not
forty yards away, lay the enemy. The long line of blue could be seen
under the ascending smoke of thousands of rifles; the red flashes of
their guns seemed to blaze in our very faces. Now the battle was on in
earnest. The roar of Kershaw's guns mingled with those of the enemy.
Longstreet had met his old antagonist of Round Top, Hancock, the
Northern hero, of Gettysburg. The roar of the small arms, mingled with
the thunder of the cannon that Longstreet had brought forward, echoed
and re-echoed up and down the little valley, but never to die away,
for new troops were being put rapidly in action to the right and left
of us. Men rolled and writhed in their last death struggle; wounded
men groped their way to the rear, being blinded by the stifling smoke.
All commands were drowned in this terrible din of battle--the earth
and elements shook and trembled with the deadly shock of combat.
Regiments were left without commanders; companies, without officers.
The gallant Colonel Gaillard, of the Second, had fallen. The intrepid
young Colonel of the Third, J.D. Nance, had already died in the lead
of his regiment. The commander of the Seventh, Captain Goggans, was
wounded. Colonel John D. Kennedy, commanding the brigade, had left the
field, disabled from further service for the day.

Still the battle rolled on. It seemed for a time as if the whole
Federal Army was upon us--so thick and fast came the death-dealing
missiles. Our ranks were being decimated by the wounded and the dead,
the little va