"Stand by the guns!" was the quick, imperative order. The men sprang to their feet. Those who were at the spring, in the hollow of the field, filling their canteens, came to the lines upon the run. "What's up?" asked an officer. "The Rebels are massing in front, and it looks as though they were going to attack." "Gibbons's brigade is across the turnpike; he will hold them, I reckon," said another officer. I rode up on the hill in rear of Poffenberger's. Captain Gibbons was in front of his battery, looking across the turnpike into the woods. "It is a little risky for you to be on horseback. Do you see that fence over there?" "Yes." "Well, the Rebel skirmishers are there, and we are in easy range. If you want to get a sight of them, you had better dismount, tie your horse, and creep down under the shelter of this fence." The cannon balls were thick upon the ground, and there were pools of blood where the artillery horses had fallen. "This was a warm place an hour ago, and may be again; for I see that the Rebels are up to something over there." I look as he directs, and see a column of troops moving through the woods. They are in sight but a moment. I walk along the line, past Gibbons's, Cooper's, Easton's, Durrell's, Muma's, and Gerrish's batteries, to Poffenberger's barn. Gerrish's battery is very near the building. The gunners are tired with their morning's work, and are sound asleep under the wheat-stacks, undisturbed by the roar a half-mile distant, where Sedgwick is at it, or by the shot and shells which scream past them. Dead and wounded men are lying in Poffenberger's door-yard. The ground is stained with blood. Two noble white horses are there, one with his head smashed, the other with his neck torn,--both killed by the same shot. There are dead men in the turnpike. Gibbons's brigade is behind the stone wall. The toll-house is riddled with bullets. There are flattened pieces of lead among the stones. The trees are scarred. There are fragments of shells. The ground is strown with knapsacks, guns, belts, canteens, and articles dropped in the fight. "I guess you are about near enough. This is the front line," says a soldier. I think so, too, for the bullets are singing over our heads and past us. I go up through the woods, south of Poffenberger's, to Miller's cornfield. The contest has lost some of its fury. The Rebels have been repulsed, and both sides are taking breath. Mansfield's corps is in the woods, east of Miller's. Sedgwick's division is in the cornfield, behind the batteries of Cothran, Woodruff, Mathews, and Thompson. The batteries are pouring a constant stream of shells into the woods beyond the church.