e spot, successive lines of battle had charged during the day.
Brave souls! With rushing memories of home and kindred and friends, they
shrank not because the path of duty was one of danger.

We were there as a forlorn hope for the final effort of the field. With
great exertion and consummate skill upon the part of its Commander, a
battery had been placed in position on the summit of the slope. Officers
and men worked nobly, handling the pieces with coolness and rapidity.
What they accomplished, could not be seen. What they suffered, was
frightfully apparent. Man after man was shot away, until in some
instances they were too weak-handed to keep the pieces from following
their own recoil down the slope, confusing our ranks and bruising the
men. Volunteers sprang forward to assist in working the guns. The
gallant Commander, almost unaided, kept order in what would otherwise
have been a mingled herd of confused men and frightened horses. No force
could withstand the hurricane of hurtling shot and shell that swept the
summit.

"Lieutenant, take command of that gun," was the short, sharp, nervous
utterance of a General of Division, as in one of his tours of random
riding he suddenly stopped his horse in front of a boy of nineteen, a
Lieutenant of infantry, who previously to bringing his squad of men into
service, a few brief months before, had never seen a full battery.

"Sir!" he replied, in unfeigned astonishment.

"By G--d! sir, I command you as the Commanding General of this
Division, sir, to take command of that piece of artillery."

"General, I am entirely unacquainted with----"

"Take command of that piece, sir. You should be ready to enter any arm
of the service," replied the General, flourishing his sword in a
threatening manner.

"General, I will do my duty; but I can't sight a cannon, sir. I will
hand cartridge, turn the screw, steady the wheel, or I'll ram----"

"Ram--ram!"--echoed the General with an oath, and off he started on
another of his mad rides.

"Fall in," was passed rapidly along the line, and a moment after our
Brigadier, cool as if exercising his command in the evolutions of a
peaceful field, rode along the ranks.

"Boys, you are ordered to take that stone wall, and must do it with the
bayonet."

Words full of deadly import to men who for long hours had been in full
view of the impregnable works, and the field of blood in their front.
Ominous as was the command, it was greeted with cheer