e dying rent our very hearts.

"Make way there! make way! here comes Mackie's party," cried an officer
in the front, and as he spoke the forlorn hope of the Eighty-eighth came
forward at a run; jumping recklessly into the ditch, they made towards the
breach; the supporting division of the stormers gave one inspiring cheer,
and sprang after them. The rush was tremendous; for scarcely had we reached
the crumbling ruins of the rampart, when the vast column, pressing on like
some mighty torrent, bore down upon our rear. Now commenced a scene to
which nothing I ever before conceived of war could in any degree compare:
the whole ground, covered with combustibles of every deadly and destructive
contrivance, was rent open with a crash; the huge masses of masonry bounded
into the air like things of no weight; the ringing clangor of the iron
howitzers, the crackling of the fuses, the blazing splinters, the shouts of
defiance, the more than savage yell of those in whose ranks alone the dead
and the dying were numbered, made up a mass of sights and sounds almost
maddening with their excitement. On we struggled; the mutilated bodies of
the leading files almost filling the way.

By this time the Third Division had joined us, and the crush of our
thickening ranks was dreadful; every moment some well-known leader fell
dead or mortally wounded, and his place was supplied by some gallant fellow
who, springing from the leading files, would scarcely have uttered his
cheer of encouragement, ere he himself was laid low. Many a voice with
whose notes I was familiar, would break upon my ear in tones of heroic
daring, and the next moment burst forth in a death-cry. For above an hour
the frightful carnage continued, fresh troops continually advancing, but
scarcely a foot of ground was made; the earth belched forth its volcanic
fires, and that terrible barrier did no man pass. In turn the bravest and
the boldest would leap into the whizzing flame, and the taunting cheers of
the enemy triumphed in derision at the effort.

"Stormers to the front! Only the bayonet! trust to nothing but the
bayonet!" cried a voice whose almost cheerful accents contrasted strangely
with the dead-notes around, and Gurwood, who led the forlorn hope of
the Fifty-second, bounded into the chasm; all the officers sprang
simultaneously after him; the men pressed madly on; a roll of withering
musketry crashed upon them; a furious shout replied to it. The British,
springing o