-water.

On the west gable of this mansion, on the afternoon of the battle, a
signal-officer was stationed, with his ten-foot staff and odd-shaped
parti-colored yard of muslin, and his field-glass. His view extended far
in the direction of Richmond, taking in the various camps of Wise's
Legion, Jackson's and Huger's divisions, and others of the rebel forces;
while riverwards his eye could easily reach, with the aid of the glass
and when the smoke of the field did not arise too thickly, the famed
Drury's Bluff and the redoubtable Fort Darling itself, still frowning
defiance at the threatening little Monitor.

The failure to take the rifle-pits had been followed by a second lull,
betokening, to the experienced soldier, fresh rebel preparations for an
attack in another quarter. Suddenly, when the sun was just sending the
last of its rays through the murky clouds of the battle-field, as if in
indication that the eye of heaven had not wholly deserted the
brotherhood of Cain,--the Federal signal-officers in the distance waved
their flags, and other signal-officers in the vicinity repeated their
motions. These pantomimic exhibitions, mysterious to the unpractised
eye, told to the officers in command, that the Confederates, strongly
reinforced by the fresh troops of Jackson and Huger, and their troops
inspired by fresh draughts of the maddening gunpowdered whiskey, were
being marshalled for another and final attack upon the Federal position.

But a few moments elapsed before the roar of the Confederate batteries
gave proof that this warning had not been in vain. Every piece they
could bring to bear sent its missiles of death hurtling into the Union
lines, the next charge to be made under cover of that cannonade. But
probably even they had not calculated upon such a reply as was given by
the artillery of McClellan. Never before, since war became a science of
butchery, did so many pieces thunder at once upon the devoted ranks of
any attacking force. Never before were the very peals of the artillery
of heaven so terribly rivalled. Only a portion of the Union guns had
before been brought into play: now nearly the whole three hundred
belched forth their deadly defiance in crashing and booming repetitions.
Those who heard the sound will never forget it; nor will many of them
live to hear that sound repeated. Far away among the mountains, a
hundred and fifty miles distant, the boom of that terrible cannonade was
heard, announcing th