Hancock fell in the grey light on Heth and Wilcox. The Wilderness echoed the musketry and the shouting. It was a furious onslaught, for a time a furious answer—and then Wilcox’s line, exhausted, decimated, broke and rolled in confusion down the Orange Plank Road. When the men reached Poague’s artillery they made a wavering stand. The guns, crashing into battle, did what they might to help. But Hancock’s shouting lines came on. A furious musketry fire burst in the face of the guns, a leaden rain hard pelting from just across the road, the drops falling thick and fast among the guns and the gunners and a company of mounted officers behind. The grey infantry, exposed to volley after volley, broke again; all the place became a troubled grey sea, cross-waves and confusion. Lee rode out from the group of officers. “Rally, men, rally!” he cried. “General Longstreet is coming!” _O Marse Robert! O Marse Robert!_ The boisterous rain came and came again from the coverts of the Wilderness. Hancock’s men shouted loudly. They saw the grey overthrow. “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” they shouted. Lee rose in his stirrups. “Rally, Army of Northern Virginia!—” “_Longstreet! Longstreet!_” Double-column and double-time, Longstreet came down the Plank Road. Deploying, Kershaw came into line under fire to the right. Deploying, Field swung across on the left. “Charge, Kershaw!” ordered Longstreet. Kershaw charged, and flung back the shouting blue advance; Field, on the left, advancing at a run, swept past the smoking guns and Lee, sitting Traveller. Gregg’s Texans were in front. “General Lee! General Lee!” they shouted. Lee lifted his hat, and then he spurred grey Traveller and kept beside the Texans. “He’s going in with them!” exclaimed an aide. “He mustn’t do that!” Gregg turned his head. “General Lee, you mustn’t go with us! We can’t allow that, sir!” Now the men saw, too. “Do you mean—No, no! that won’t do! _General Lee to the rear!_” “But, men—” There rose a cry. “We won’t go on unless you go back! _General Lee to the rear!_” A man took hold of Traveller’s bridle and turned him. On dashed the Texans—eight hundred of them. They went now through open field, now through pines. They struck Webb’s brigade of Hancock’s corps. Blue and grey, there sprang a roar of musketry. Four hundred of the eight hundred fell, lay dead or wounded; then with a loud and long cry there swept to the aid of Gregg, Benning’s Texans, Georgia, and Alabama. Law and Benning and Gregg pushed back the blue.