great line of the Northern Army. It was both deeper
and longer than that of the South, and he knew that the men were full of
resolve and courage.

"How many have we got here?" Dick heard himself asking Warner.

"Forty or fifty thousand, I suppose," he heard Warner replying, "and
before night there will be eighty thousand. Our line is two miles long
now. We ought to wrap around Jackson and crush him to death. Listen to
the bugles! What a mellow note! And how they draw men on to death! And
listen to the throbbing of the big cannon, too!"

Warner's face was flushed. He had become excited, as the two armies
stood there, and looked at each other a moment or two like prize
fighters in the ring before closing in battle. Then they heard the order
to charge and far up and down the line their own cannon opened with a
crash so great that Dick and his comrades could not hear one another
talking.

Then they charged. The whole army lifted itself up and rushed at the
enemy, animated by patriotism, the fire of battle and the desire for
revenge. Among the officers were Milroy and Schenck and others who had
been beaten by Jackson in the valley. There, too, was the brigade
of Germans whom Jackson had beaten at Cross Keyes. Many of them were
veterans of the sternest discipline known in Europe and they longed
fiercely for revenge. And there were more Germans, too, under
Schurz--hired Germans, fighting nearly a hundred years before to prevent
the Union--and free Germans now fighting to save it.

Driven forward thus by all the motives that sway men in battle, the
Union army rushed upon Jackson. Confident from many victories and
trusting absolutely in their leader the Southern defense received the
mighty charge without flinching. The wood now swarmed with riflemen
and they filled the air with their bullets, so many of them that their
passage was like the continual rush of a hurricane. Along the whole line
came the same metallic scream, and the great battery in the center was a
volcano, pouring forth a fiery hurricane of shot and shell.

Dick felt their front lines being shorn. Although he was untouched it
was an actual physical sensation. He could see but little save that
fearful blaze in their faces, and the cries of the wounded and dying
were drowned by the awful roar of so many cannon and rifles.

The cloud of dust and smoke had become immense and overwhelming in an
instant, but it was pierced always in front by the blaze of fire, a