last gave way and fell
back to the shelter of their woods and gathered reinforcements. The
Union lines had been cut to pieces and suddenly ceased firing while
their support advanced.

The roaring hell had died into a strange ominous stillness. John Vaughan
had just dashed up to the embankment with orders from McClellan to hold
this position until Haskin's division arrived. He sprang on the
embankment and looked curiously at the long piles of grey bodies lying
in an endless row as far as the eye could reach. Over the tree tops,
faintly mingling with the low cry of a dying boy of sixteen, came the
sweet distant notes of a church bell in Richmond.

"God in heaven--the mockery of it!" he cried.

A great shout swept the blue lines. Hooker's magnificent division of
fresh troops swept into view, eager for the fray. They rapidly deployed
to the right and left. In front of them lay the open blood-soaked field,
and beyond the deep woods bristling with Southern bayonets. The new
division leaped into this open field, with a wild shout, their eyes set
on the woods. They paused, only to fire, and their double quick became a
race.

The Southern batteries followed and tore great holes in their ranks.
They closed them with low quick sullen orders sweeping on. They reached
the edge of the woods and poured into its friendly shelter. And then
above the tops of oak and pine and beech and ash and tangled undergrowth
came the soul-piercing roar of two great armies, fearless, daring,
scorning death, fighting hand to hand, man to man, for what they
believed to be right.

The people in church turned anxious faces toward the sound. Its roar
rang above the sob of organ and the chant of choir.

Bayonet clashed on bayonet, as regiment after regiment were locked in
close mortal combat. Hour after hour the stubborn unyielding hosts held
fast on both sides. The storm weakened and slowly died away. Only the
intermittent crack of a rifle here and there broke the stillness.

There was no shout of victory, no sweep of cheering hosts--only silence.
The Confederate General in command for the day had lost faith in his
battle plan and withdrew his army from the field. The men in blue could
move in and camp on the ground they had held the day before if they
wished.

But there was something more important to do now than maneuver for
position in history. The dead and the dying and wounded crying for water
were everywhere--down every sunlit aisle of the