most blood curdling of
sounds--the half-singing, half-hissing z-z-z-ip of the minie-ball--numbs
the ardor of the bravest. It is such a malignant, direct, devilish
admonition of murder; it comes so unexpectedly, no matter how well you
are prepared, that Achilles himself would feel a spasm of fear. And when
it strikes it does its work with such a venomous, exultant splutter,
that there seems something animate, demoniac in it. The volley, as I
said, came as the men were hurried down the hill by their own momentum
and by the sharp fall in the ground. The balls passed too high or too
low, but they impressed the fact on enthusiasts, who had longed for
battle, that one might die for one's country and not die gloriously. It
seemed such an ignoble, such a dastardly, outrageous thing, that death
could come to them from unseen hands, for as yet they had not seen a
soul. But now they are at the foot of the hill--though it is not correct
to so call it, for it was a long, winding valley, through which ran a
dancing streamlet, very welcome to the thirsty warriors when they had
succeeded in breaking through the vicious natural _chevaux de frise_ of
blackberry-briers and nettles. But now there wasn't much time to slake
thirst. The bullets had begun to come regularly; and suddenly, as Jack
conducted his squad across the stream, he was startled by the
exclamation, uttered rather in reverence, it seemed to him, than
surprise or pain:

"My God, I'm hit!"

Yes, a fair-haired lad--one of his class--tottered a second in a limp,
helpless way, and fell headlong, pitching into the little stream. Jack
ran and lifted him out; but even before the hospital corps came the boy
was dead. The bullet had gone quite through his heart.

However, now the first numbing terror of the bullet was changed to a
sort of revengeful delight. Relinquishing any return fire for a moment,
the company, with a great shout, that sounded all along its front,
dashed up the hill, through the scrub-oak at the brow, and then they
could see the enemy slowly retiring, a chain of them a mile or more
wide. While one of the rebel ranks fired the other knelt, or lay flat
upon the ground loading, where there were no natural obstacles to take
shelter behind. A vengeful shout ran along the Union lines.

"Capture them--don't fire!" and with one impulse the groups lied forward
so swiftly that the enemy, believing the rush only momentary, delayed
too long, and in two minutes the Union