egiment
was about to be blown away, but as he looked through the fire and smoke
he saw Warner and Pennington still by his side, and the colonel a little
ahead, waving his sword and shouting orders that could not be heard.

Dick saw shining far before him the white walls of the Dunkard church,
and he was seized with a frantic desire to reach it. It seemed to him if
they could get there that the victory would be won. Yet they made little
progress. The cannon facing them fairly spouted fire, and thousands of
expert riflemen in front of them lying behind ridges and among rocks
and bushes sent shower after shower of leaden balls that swept away the
front ranks of the charging Union lines. The shell and the shrapnel and
the grape and the round shot made a great noise, but the little bullets
coming in swarms like bees were the true messengers of death.

Jackson and four thousand of his veterans formed the thin line between
the Dunkard church and the Antietam. They were ragged and worn by war,
but they were the children of victory, led by a man of genius, and they
felt equal to any task. Near Jackson stood his favorite young aide,
Harry Kenton, and on the other side was the thin regiment of the
Invincibles, led by Colonel Leonidas Talbot, and Lieutenant-Colonel
Hector St. Hilaire.

Around the church itself were the Texans under Hood, stalwart, sunburned
men who could ride like Comanches, some of whom when lads had been
present at San Jacinto, when the Texans struck with such terrible might
and success for liberty.

"Are we winning? Tell me, that we are winning!" shouted Dick in Warner's
ear.

"We're not winning, but we will! Confound that fog! It's coming up
again!" Warner shouted back.

The heavy fog from the Potomac and the Antietam which the early and
burning sunrise had driven away was drifting back, thickened by the
smoke from the cannon and rifles. The gray lines in front disappeared
and the church was hidden. Yet the Northern artillery continued to pour
a terrible fire through the smoke toward the point where the Confederate
infantry had been posted.

Dick heard at the same time a tremendous roar on the left, and he knew
that the Union batteries beyond the Antietam had opened a flanking fire
on the Southern army. He breathed a sigh of triumph. McClellan, who
could organize and prepare so well, was aroused at last to such a point
that he could concentrate his full strength in battle itself, and push
home with all