Kimball, a little farther south, joining his right to Weber's left, sweeps on in splendid order past Muma's spring-house, his left wing touching the apple-trees around Rulet's. The Rebel cannon on the hills are sending down a steady stream of shells. The Union batteries east of the Antietam--the twenty-pounder Parrotts--are throwing rifled shot in reply. Richardson's batteries on the hillock beyond the ravine are firing from the southeast, while Kirby, Owen, Thompson, and Bartlett, are raining all kinds of shot from the north. It is a tumultuous roar. Under cover of this tremendous fire, French moves up the hill. His men reach the crest, and stand within ten rods of the sunken road. There is a rail fence between them and the road. Suddenly, thousands of men seem to grow out of the ground. The long line rises. The Rebels thrust the muzzles of their muskets between the rails. The work of death begins. French's men, instead of fleeing from this unexpected foe, intrenched in so strong a position, rush with a loud hurrah towards the fence. Hundreds fall while running, but those who survive pour their fire into the road. The combatants are not ten paces apart. Hill's line in the road is consumed like a straw in a candle's flame. It melts like lead in a crucible. Officers and men go down, falling in heaps. The few who are left after the tremendous volleys flee into the cornfield, towards the turnpike. French's men are wild with the enthusiasm which comes with success. They tear away the rails, leap over the fence, plunge into the road, trampling down the dying and dead, over the second fence, into the cornfield, and rush upon the second line with uncontrollable fury, scattering it, breaking it, like a bundle of brittle fagots. It is a terrible struggle. There are hand to hand fights in the corn-rows; Union and Rebel fall together, literally in heaps, like sticks of wood tossed together by choppers! "See the smoke how the lightning is cleaving asunder, Hark! the guns, peal and peal, how they boom in the thunder! From host to host with kindling sound, The shouting circle signals round; Ay, shout it forth to life or death,-- Freer already breathes the breath! The war is waging, slaughter raging, And heavy through the reeking pall The iron death-dice fall! Nearer they close--foes upon foes; 'Ready!' from square to square it goes. "They kneel as one man from flank to flank, And the sharp fire comes from the foremost rank. Many a soldier to earth is sent, Many a gap by the ball is rent; O'er the corpse before springs the hinder man, That the line may not fail to the fearless van. To the right, to the left, and around and around, Death whirls in its dance on the bloody ground. God's sunlight is quenched in the fiery fight, Over the host falls a brooding night! _Brothers, God grant, when this life is o'er, In the life to come that we meet once more!_"