of a broken arm and
drove his sword to the hilt into the giant's breast. As the body fell
the weapon was wrenched from his hand and before he could pluck his
revolver from the scabbard at his belt another man leaped upon him like
a tiger, fastening both hands upon his throat and bearing him backward
upon the prostrate Governor, still struggling to rise. This man was
promptly spitted upon the bayonet of a Federal sergeant and his
death-gripe on the captain's throat loosened by a kick upon each wrist.
When the captain had risen he was at the rear of his men, who had all
passed over and around him and were thrusting fiercely at their more
numerous but less coherent antagonists. Nearly all the rifles on both
sides were empty and in the crush there was neither time nor room to
reload. The Confederates were at a disadvantage in that most of them
lacked bayonets; they fought by bludgeoning--and a clubbed rifle is a
formidable arm. The sound of the conflict was a clatter like that of the
interlocking horns of battling bulls--now and then the pash of a crushed
skull, an oath, or a grunt caused by the impact of a rifle's muzzle
against the abdomen transfixed by its bayonet. Through an opening made
by the fall of one of his men Captain Armisted sprang, with his dangling
left arm; in his right hand a full-charged revolver, which he fired with
rapidity and terrible effect into the thick of the gray crowd: but
across the bodies of the slain the survivors in the front were pushed
forward by their comrades in the rear till again they breasted the
tireless bayonets. There were fewer bayonets now to breast--a beggarly
half-dozen, all told. A few minutes more of this rough work--a little
fighting back to back--and all would be over.

Suddenly a lively firing was heard on the right and the left: a fresh
line of Federal skirmishers came forward at a run, driving before them
those parts of the Confederate line that had been separated by staying
the advance of the centre. And behind these new and noisy combatants, at
a distance of two or three hundred yards, could be seen, indistinct
among the trees a line-of-battle!

Instinctively before retiring, the crowd in gray made a tremendous rush
upon its handful of antagonists, overwhelming them by mere momentum and,
unable to use weapons in the crush, trampled them, stamped savagely on
their limbs, their bodies, their necks, their faces; then retiring with
bloody feet across its own dead it joined