arp response. The
earth and the air shook for miles around with the terrific concussion,
which came no longer in volleys, but in a continual roar. So long and
fearful a cannonade was never before witnessed on this continent. As the
range was short and the aim accurate, the destruction was terrible. But
the advantage was decidedly in favor of the Rebels, whose guns were
superior in number to ours, and of heavier calibre, and had been
concentrated for the attack. A spectator of the Union army thus
describes the scene:

"The storm broke upon us so suddenly, that soldiers and officers--who
leaped, as it began, from their tents, or from lazy siestas on the
grass--were stricken in their rising with mortal wounds, and died, some
with cigars between their teeth, some with pieces of food in their
fingers, and one at least--a pale young German, from Pennsylvania--with
a miniature of his sister in his hands. Horses fell, shrieking such
awful cries as Cooper told of, and writhing themselves about in hopeless
agony. The boards of fences, scattered by explosion, flew in splinters
through the air. The earth, torn up in clouds, blinded the eyes of
hurrying men; and through the branches of trees and among the
gravestones of the cemetery a shower of destruction crashed ceaselessly.
As, with hundreds of others, I groped through this tempest of death for
the shelter of the bluff, an old man, a private in a company belonging
to the Twenty-fourth Michigan, was struck, scarcely ten feet away, by a
cannon-ball, which tore through him, extorting such a low, intense cry
of mortal pain as I pray God I may never again hear. The hill, which
seemed alone devoted to this rain of death, was clear in nearly all its
unsheltered places within five minutes after the fire began."

A correspondent from the Confederate army thus describes this artillery
contest: "I have never yet heard such tremendous artillery-firing. The
enemy must have had over one hundred guns, which, in addition to our one
hundred and fifteen, made the air hideous with most discordant noise.
The very earth shook beneath our feet, and the hills and rocks seemed to
reel like a drunken man. For one hour and a half this most terrific fire
was continued, during which time the shrieking of shell, the crash of
fallen timbers, the fragments of rocks flying through the air, shattered
from the cliffs by solid shot, the heavy mutterings from the valley
between the opposing armies, the splash of b