Part 44 (1/2)

The regiment leaped to their feet and started up the hill. They had lost two hundred men in their first sweep. There were six hundred left.

”Hold your fire until I give the word!” the Colonel shouted.

The smoke was hanging low, and they had made two hundred yards before the blue line saw them through the haze. The hill blazed and hissed in their faces. The ma.s.sed infantry behind the guns found their marks. Men dropped right and left, sank in grey heaps or fell forward on their faces--some were knocked backwards down the slope. Yet without a pause they climbed.

Three hundred yards more and they would be on the guns. And then a sheet of blinding flame from every black-mouthed gun in line double shotted with grape and canister! The regiment was literally knocked to its knees. The men paused as if dazed by the shock. The sharp words of cheer and command from their officers and they rallied. From both flanks poured a murderous hail of bullets--guns to the right, left and front, all screaming, roaring, hissing their call of blood.

The Colonel saw the charge was hopeless and ordered his men to fire and fall back fighting. The grey line began to melt into the smoke mists down the hill and disappeared--all save Ned Vaughan. His eyes were fixed on that battery when the order to fire was given. He fired and charged with fixed bayonet alone. He never paused to see how many men were with him. His mind was set on capturing one of those guns. He reached the breastworks and looked behind him. There was not a man in sight. A blue gunner was ramming a cannon. With a savage leap Ned was on the boy, grabbed him by the neck and rushed down the hill in front of his own gun before the astounded Commander realized what had happened. When he did it was too late to fire. They would tear both men to pieces.

The regiment had rallied in the woods at the edge of the field from which they had first charged.

Ned Vaughan led his prisoner, in bright new uniform of blue, up to the Colonel and reported.

”A prisoner of war, sir!”

The Colonel took off his hat and gazed at the pair:

”Aren't you the boy who held my horse?”

Ned saluted:

”Yes, sir.”

”Then in the name of Almighty G.o.d, where did you get that man?”

Ned pointed excitedly to the hilltop:

”Right yonder, sir,--there's plenty more of 'em up there!”

The Colonel scratched his head, looked Ned over from head to heel and broke into a laugh.

”Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned,” he said at last. ”Take him to the rear and report to me to-night. I want to see you.”

Ned saluted and hurried to the rear with his prisoner.

The sun was slowly sinking in a sea of blood. The red faded to purple, the purple to grey, the grey into the shadows of night and still the guns were thundering from their heights. It was nine o'clock before they were silent and Lee's torn and mangled army lay down among their dead and wounded to wait the dawn and renew the fight. They had been compelled to breast the most devastating fire to which an a.s.saulting army had been subjected in the history of war. The trees of the woods had been literally torn and mangled as if two cyclones had met and ripped them to pieces.

The men dropped in their tracks to s.n.a.t.c.h a few hours' sleep.

The low ominous sounds that drifted from the darkness could not be heeded till to-morrow. Here and there a lantern flickered as they picked up a wounded man and carried him to the rear. Only the desperately wounded could be helped. The dead must sleep beneath the stars. The low, pitiful cries for water guided the ambulance corps as they stumbled over the heaps of those past help.

The clouds drew a veil over the stars at midnight and it began to pour down rain before day. The sleeping, worn men woke with muttered oaths and stood against the trees or squatted against their trunks seeking shelter from the flood. As the mists lifted, they looked with grim foreboding but still desperate courage to the heights. Every rampart was deserted. Not one of those three hundred and forty guns remained.

McClellan had withdrawn his army under the cover of the night to Harrison's Landing.

It would be difficult to tell whose men were better satisfied.

”Thank G.o.d, he's gone from there anyhow!” the men in grey cried with fervor.