The trenches grew slippery with blood. It mixed with the rain and ran in red streamlets. The bayonet point felt first the folds of cloth, then it touched and broke the skin, then it parted the tissues, then it grated against bone, or, passing on, rending muscle and gristle, protruded, a crimson point. Withdrawn, it sought another body, sought it fast, and found it. Those men who had room to fire kept on firing, the blue into breast and face of the grey, the grey into breast and face of the blue. Flame scorched the flesh of each. Pistols were used as well as muskets. Where there was not room to fire, or time to load, where one could not well thrust with the bayonet, the stock of gun or pistol was used as a club. Where weapons had been wrested away men clutched with bare hands one anothers’ throats. And all this went on, not among a dozen or even fifty infuriated beings, but among thousands. Over all was the smoke, through which, as through a leaky roof, poured the rain. The blue came over the breastwork, down the slippery side, into the trenches. Their feet pressed dead bodies or slipped in the bloody mire. The grey seemed to lift them bodily and throw them back upon the other side. Then across the parapet broke out again the storm of musketry. There were four thousand defending the salient, there were thrice as many pressing to the attack. From the rear Ewell was throwing forward brigades, but they could not come in time. The twenty-two guns were now here, but only two were unlimbered, when the blue finally overran the Bloody Angle.