ayonet-charges, fierce hand-to-hand
contests. The Rebels rush upon McAllister's guns, but are turned back.
The lines surge to and fro like the waves of the sea. The dying and the
dead are trampled beneath the feet of the contending hosts.

Wallace hears a sharp fire in his rear. The Rebels have pushed out once
more towards the west and are coming in again upon the right flank of
the new battle line. McClernand sees that he is contending against
overwhelming numbers, and he sends a messenger in haste to General Lewis
Wallace, who sends Cruft's brigade to his assistance. The brigade goes
down the road upon the run. The soldiers shout and hurrah. They pass in
rear of Taylor's battery, and push on to the right to help Oglesby and
McArthur.

The Rebels have driven those brigades. The men are hastening to the rear
with doleful stories. Some of them rush through Cruft's brigade. Cruft
meets the advancing Rebels face to face. The din of battle has lulled
for a moment, but now it rolls again louder than before. The Rebels dash
on, but it is like the dashing of the waves against a rock. Cruft's men
are unmoved, though the Rebels advance till they are within twenty feet
of the line. There are deafening volleys. The smoke from the opposing
lines becomes a single cloud. The Rebels are held in check on the right
by their firmness and endurance.

But just at this moment General Buckner's brigades come out of their
intrenchments. They pass in front of their rifle-pits at the base of the
hill, and march rapidly down to the Dover road. Colonel Wallace sees
them. In a few minutes they will pour their volleys into the backs of
his men. You remember that the Seventeenth and part of the Forty-ninth
Illinois regiments were left standing near the road. You hear from their
muskets now. They stand their ground and meet the onset manfully. Two
guns of Taylor's battery, which have been thundering towards the south,
wheel round to the northeast and sweep the Rebels with grape and
canister.

Three fourths of the Rebel army is pressing upon McClernand's one
division. His troops are disappearing. Hundreds are killed and wounded.
Men who carry the wounded to rear do not return. The Rebels see their
advantage, and charge upon Schwartz's and McAllister's batteries, but
are repulsed. Reinforced by new regiments, they rush on again. They
shoot the gunners and the horses and seize the cannon. The struggle is
fierce, but unequal. Oglesby's men are overpo