s; and with
bayonets at a charge, up that difficult slope,--preserving their line as
best they could while breaking to pass the guns, wounded and struggling
horses, and bodies thickly strewn over that most perilous of positions
for artillery,--the troops passed at a rapid step. The ground upon the
summit had been laid out in small lots, as is customary in the suburbs
of towns. Many of the partition fences were still remaining, with here
and there gaps, or with upper rails lowered for the passage of troops.
For a moment, while crossing these fallow fields, there was a lull in
the direct musketry. The enfilading fire from batteries right and left
still continued; the fierce fitful flashes of the bursting shells
becoming more visible with the approach of night. Onward we went,
picking our way among the fallen dead and wounded of Brigades who had
preceded us in the fight, with feet fettered with mud, struggling to
keep place in the line. Several regiments lying upon their arms were
passed over in the charge.

"Captain," said a mounted officer when we had just crossed a fence
bounding what appeared to be an avenue of the town, "close up on the
right." The Captain partly turned, to repeat the command to his men,
when the bullets from a sudden flash of waving fire that for the instant
lit up the summit of the stone wall for its entire length, prostrated
him with a mortal wound, and dismounted his superior. Pity that his eye
should close in what seemed to be the darkest hour of the cause dearest
to his soul!

Volley after volley of sheeted lead was poured into our ranks. We were
in the proper position on the plain, and a day's full practice gave them
exact range and terrible execution. In the increased darkness, the
flashes of musketry alone were visible ahead, while to the right and
left the gloom was lit up by the lurid flashing of their batteries. This
very darkness, in concealing the danger, and the loss, doubtless did its
share in permitting the men to cross the lines of dead that marked the
halting-place of previous troops. Still onward they advanced,--the
thunder of artillery above them,--the groans of the wounded rising from
below;--frightful gaps are made in their ranks by exploding shells, and
many a brave boy staggers and falls to rise no more, in that storm of
spitefully whizzing lead.

Regularity in ranks was simply impossible. Many officers and men
gathered about a brick house on the right--a narrow lawn leadin