nd
by its flaming light Dick saw the long lines of the Southern men, their
faces gray and fixed, as he knew those of his own comrades were.

But the charge, brave, even reckless, failed. The brigades broke in vain
on Jackson's iron front. Riddled by the fire of the great battery and of
the riflemen they could not go on and live. The Germans had longed for
revenge, but they did not get it. The South Carolinians fell upon them
at the edge of the wood and hurled them back. They rallied, and charged
again, but again they were handled terribly, and were forced back by the
charging masses of the Southerners.

Dick had been at Shiloh. He had seen the men of the west in a great
battle, and now he saw the men of the east in a battle yet greater.
There it had been largely in the forest, here it was mostly in the open,
yet he saw but little more. One of the extraordinary features of this
battle was dust. Trampled up from the dry fields by fighting men in
scores of thousands it rose in vast floating clouds that permeated
everything. It was even more persistent than the smoke. It clogged
Dick's throat. It stung and burnt him like powder. Often it filled his
eyes so completely that for a moment or two he could not see the blaze
of the cannon and rifle fire, almost in his face.

But as they fell back he felt again that sensation of actual physical
pain, although he was still untouched. Added to it was an intense mental
anguish. They were failing! They had been driven back! They had not
crushed Jackson! He forgot all about Colonel Winchester, and his
comrades Warner and Pennington. He forgot all about his own danger in
this terrible reversal of his hopes, and he began to shout angrily at
the men to stand. He did not know by and by that no sound came from his
mouth, that words could not come from a throat so choked with dust and
burned gunpowder.

But the charge was made again. The thudding great guns now told all the
Northern divisions where Jackson was. The eighty thousand men of Pope
were crowding forward to attack him, and the batteries were galloping
over the plateau to add to the volume of shot and shell that was poured
upon the Southern ranks.

Dick was quite unconscious of the passage of time. Hope had sprung anew
in his breast. He heard a report that ten thousand fresh troops under
Kearney had arrived and were attacking the Southerners in the wood.
He knew by the immense volume of fire coming from that point that the
repo