ting force of the Army of the
Valley crossed the endless open meadow beneath Kimball's batteries. That
the latter's range was poor was a piece of golden fortune. The shells
crossed to the wood or exploded high in blue air. Harmless they might
be, but undeniably they were trying. Involuntarily the men stared,
fascinated, at each round white cloud above them; involuntarily jerked
their heads at each rending explosion. From a furrowed ridge below the
guns, musketry took a hand. The Army of the Valley here first met with
minie balls. The sound with which they came curdled the blood. "What's
that? What's that?... That's something new. _The infernal things!_"
Billy Maydew, walking with his eyes on the minies, stumbled over a
fairy's ring and came to his knees. Lieutenant Coffin swore at him.
"---- ----! Gawking and gaping as though 'twere Christmas and Roman
candles going off! Getup!" Billy arose and marched on. "I air a-going to
kill him. Yes, sir; I air a-going to kill him yet." "Shoo!" said the man
beside him. "He don't mean no harm. He's jest as nervous as a two-year
filly, and he's got to take it out on some one! Next 'lection of
officers he'll be down and out.--Sho! how them things do screech!"

The meadow closed with a wooded hill. The grey lines, reaching shelter,
gasped with relief. The way was steep, however, and the shells still
rained. An oak, struck and split by solid shot, fell across the way. A
line of ambulances coming somehow upon the hillside fared badly. Up the
men strained to the top, which proved to be a wide level. The
Rockbridge battery passed them at a gallop, to be greeted by a shell
thrown from a thirty-two pounder on the Federal right. It struck a wheel
horse of one of the howitzers, burst, and made fearful havoc. Torn flesh
and blood were everywhere; a second horse was mangled, only less
horribly than the first; the third, a strong white mare, was so covered
with the blood of her fellows and from a wound of her own, that she
looked a roan. The driver's spine was crushed, the foot of a gunner was
taken off--clean at the ankle as by a scythe. The noise was dreadful;
the shriek that the mare gave echoed through the March woods. The other
guns of the battery, together with Carpenter's and Waters's, swept round
the ruin and over the high open ground toward a stone wall that ran
diagonally across. The infantry followed and came out on an old field,
strewn with rocks and blackberry bushes. In the distance