rregular,
smoke-wreathed, swaying line. He spoke to his colonels. "There are three
thousand fresh bayonets at the back of these woods. General Jackson does
not wish a massacre. I will withdraw the brigade."

The troops were ready to go. They had held the centre very long; the
cartridges were all but spent, the loss was heavy, they were deadly
tired. They wanted water to drink and to hear the command, _Break
ranks!_ Garnett was gallant and brave; they saw that he did what he did
with reason, and their judgment acquiesced. There was momently a fresh
foe. Without much alignment, fighting in squads or singly, firing as
they went from thicket and hollow at the heavy on-coming masses, the
Stonewall Brigade fell back upon the wood to the south. The blue wave
saw victory and burst into a shout of triumph. Kimbal's batteries, too,
began a jubilant thunder.

Over the field, from Fulkerson on the left to the broken centre and the
withdrawing troops came a raw-bone sorrel urged to a furious gallop;
upon it a figure all dusk in the dusk, a Cromwell-Quixote of a man,
angered now to a degree, with an eye like steel and a voice like ice. He
rode up to Garnett, as though he would ride him down. "General Garnett,
what are you doing? Go back at once, sir!"

As he spoke he threw himself from the saddle and closed his gauntleted
hand with force on the arm of a drummer boy. "Beat the rally!" he
commanded.

The rapid and continuous rolling filled like a sound of the sea the ears
of the Stonewall Brigade. Garnett, in a strange voice, gave the
counter-order. The men uttered a hard and painful gasp. They looked and
saw Stonewall Jackson lifted above them, an iron figure in a storm of
shot and shell. He jerked his hand into the air; he shouted, "Back, men!
Give them the bayonet!" The drum beat on. Colonels and captains and
lieutenants strove to aid him and to change the retreat into an advance.
In vain! the commands were shattered; the fighting line all broken and
dispersed. The men did not shamefully flee; they retreated sullenly,
staying here and there where there were yet cartridges, to fire upon the
on-coming foe, but they continued to go back.

The 5th and the 42d with Funsten's small cavalry command came hastening
to the broken centre and there made a desperate fight. The 5th Virginia
and the 5th Ohio clanged shields. The 84th Pennsylvania broke twice,
rallied twice, finally gave way. Two Indiana regiments came up; the 5th
Virginia wa