e conflict to loyalist and rebel who had no other
means of knowing that it was in progress. At times the firm earth shook
with the continued reverberations, as if an earthquake was passing; and
combatants even stood still in the very face of the deadliest danger,
under a momentary impression that some fearful convulsion of nature must
be in progress and that the sinking sun must be going down on the last
day of a crumbling earth.

The rebel artillery was skilfully managed, and their range proved to be
excellent; while the management and effect of the Union guns can only be
described by one word--magnificent. The superior weight and management
of the Federal metal was manifest from one fact if no other--the
continual limbering up and changing positions of the rebel pieces, to
escape the deadly aim of artillerymen who have probably never been
excelled in any service. The only historian who has as yet dealt with
the events of that great day,[14] says that it was "madness for the
Confederates to rush against such obstacles," and that during the entire
day, owing to the weight and superior management of the Federal
artillery, they fought "without for a single moment having a chance of
success." And yet this was the artillery of an army, and this was the
army itself, spoken of by detractors as "defeated" and "demoralized,"
and utterly incapable of further offensive movements against Richmond,
however rested and reinforced!

[Footnote 14: De Joinville.]

Under cover of the smoke of this fire, the mighty hosts of Huger,
Jackson and Magruder advanced to the second general assault. Onward they
rushed, and, emerging from the sulphurous clouds, rolled forward in
heavy columns. They presented a still more imposing front than at the
first attack, stretching more than half a mile across the fatal Carter's
Field, with scarce a break or an interval in its entire length. On they
pressed--steadily, resolutely, desperately--pausing an instant to pour
in their fire, and then forward again at quick step. The advance was met
with belching volumes from rifles, muskets and batteries, sending such
storms of "leaden rain and iron hail" as no body of men on earth could
hope to withstand, and joining with the shrieks and shouts of the
combatants and the dying, to create such a din as might well have given
the impression that the chains of Pandemonium were unloosed and all the
lost replying to the thunders of heaven with screams of blasphemy and