their shoulders. Displayed, they would have been torn
to rags by the boughs of the trees. Horses were all sent to the rear; the
general and staff and all the field officers toiled along on foot as best
they could. "We shall halt and form when we get out of this," said an
aide-de-camp.

Suddenly there were a ringing rattle of musketry, the familiar hissing of
bullets, and before us the interspaces of the forest were all blue with
smoke. Hoarse, fierce yells broke out of a thousand throats. The forward
fringe of brave and hardy assailants was arrested in its mutable
extensions; the edge of our swarm grew dense and clearly defined as the
foremost halted, and the rest pressed forward to align themselves beside
them, all firing. The uproar was deafening; the air was sibilant with
streams and sheets of missiles. In the steady, unvarying roar of
small-arms the frequent shock of the cannon was rather felt than heard,
but the gusts of grape which they blew into that populous wood were
audible enough, screaming among the trees and cracking against their stems
and branches. We had, of course, no artillery to reply.

Our brave color-bearers were now all in the forefront of battle in the
open, for the enemy had cleared a space in front of his breastworks. They
held the colors erect, shook out their glories, waved them forward and
back to keep them spread, for there was no wind. From where I stood, at
the right of the line--we had "halted and formed," indeed--I could see six
of our flags at one time. Occasionally one would go down, only to be
instantly lifted by other hands.

I must here quote again from General Johnston's account of this
engagement, for nothing could more truly indicate the resolute nature of
the attack than the Confederate belief that it was made by the whole
Fourth Corps, instead of one weak brigade:

"The Fourth Corps came on in deep order and assailed the Texans with great
vigor, receiving their close and accurate fire with the fortitude always
exhibited by General Sherman's troops in the actions of this campaign....
The Federal troops approached within a few yards of the Confederates, but
at last were forced to give way by their storm of well-directed bullets,
and fell back to the shelter of a hollow near and behind them. They left
hundreds of corpses within twenty paces of the Confederate line. When the
United States troops paused in their advance within fifteen paces of the
Texan front rank one of their c