ess of action came.

At dawn Meade's Army of the Potomac (less Warren's corps) began
to take post for the grand attack that some, more sanguine than
reflecting, hoped would win the war. When it was light the guns
burst out in furious defiance, each side's artillery trying to
beat the other's down before the crisis of the infantry assault.
There was no maneuvering. Each one of Meade's three corps--Hancock's,
Wright's, and Smith's (brought over from Butler's command)--marched
straight to its front. This led them apart, on diverging lines, and
so exposed their flanks as well as their fronts to enemy fire. But
though each corps thought its neighbor wrong to uncover its flanks,
and the true cause was not discovered till compass bearings were
afterwards compared, yet each went on undaunted, gaining momentum
with every step, and gathering itself together for the final charge.

Then, surging like great storm-blown waves, the blue lines broke
against Lee's iron front. In every gallant case there was the same
wild cresting of the wave, the same terrific crash, the same adventurous
tongues of blue that darted up as far as they could go alive, the same
anguishing recession from the fatal mark, and the same agonizing
wreckage left behind. In Hancock's corps the crisis passed in just
eight minutes. But in those eight dire minutes eight colonels died
while leading their regiments on to a foredoomed defeat. One of
these eight, James P. McMahon of New York, alone among his dauntless
fellows, actually reached the Confederate lines, and, catching the
colors from their stricken bearer, waved them one moment above
the parapet before he fell.

Flesh and blood could do no more. Under the withering fire and crossfire
of Lee's unshaken front the beaten corps went back, re-formed, and
waited. They had not long to wait; for Grant was set on swinging
his three hammers for three more blows at least. So again the three
assaults were separately made on the one impregnable front; and again
the waves receded, leaving a second mass of agonizing wreckage with
the first. Yet even this was not enough for Grant, who once more
renewed his orders. These orders quickly ran their usual course,
from the army to the different corps, from each corps to its own
divisions, and from divisions to brigades. But not a single unit
stirred. From the generals to the "thinking bayonets" every soldier
knew the limit had been reached. Officially the order was obeyed by
a