It was past six o'clock before Mahone, Ransom, Wright, Jones, and Cobb were ready. At the word of command, fifteen thousand men move from the shelter of the woods and appear upon the open plain, moving in solid phalanx,--close, compact, shoulder to shoulder, to capture, by a desperate charge, the batteries upon the hillside. It is madness! Success has made them reckless. With shoutings and howlings they break into a run. Instantly the hill is all aflame, from base to summit. Shells, shrapnel, and canister are poured upon them. There is the bellowing of a hundred cannon, mingled with the multitudinous rattling of thousands of small arms. The Rebel lines melt away,--whole squadrons tumbling headlong. In vain the effort, the men waver, turn, and disappear within the woods. Magruder is furious at the failure. Again the attempt,--again the same result. The sun is going down behind the hills when he makes his last effort. Meagher and Sickles go up from the right, and strengthen Porter's center. There is a shifting of batteries,--a movement to new positions,--a re-arranging of regiments. The artillery on both sides, and the gunboats, keep up a constant fire. The Rebels advance, but they are not able to reach the base of the hill. "From sixteen batteries," says the chaplain of the Fourth Texas, "and from their gunboats they beclouded the day and lit the night with a lurid glare. Add to this the light and noise of our own artillery, which had been brought forward, and, like an opposing volcano with a hundred craters, it gleamed, and flashed streams and sheets of fire,--while long lines of human forms cast their shadows upon the darkness in the background, and each joined with his firelock in hand to contribute to the terrors of the awful scene."[46] [Footnote 46: Campaign from Texas to Maryland.] Officers and men, in this contest, go down in one indiscriminate slaughter. They are whirled into the air, torn, mangled, blown into fragments. They struggle against the merciless storm, break, and disappear in the darkness, panting, exhausted, foiled, dispirited, demoralized, refusing to be murdered, and uttering execrations upon the drunken Magruder.[47] [Footnote 47: Battle-Fields of the South.] Although the army was upon James River, and in communication with the gunboats, and although the Rebels had been repulsed mainly by the artillery, orders were issued by General McClellan to retreat to Harrison's Landing. At midnight the troops were on the march, stealing noiselessly away, abandoning the wounded. "Although," says General McClellan, "the result of the battle of Malvern was a complete victory, it was necessary to fall back still farther, in order to reach a point where our supplies could be brought to us with certainty."[48] [Footnote 48: Report, p. 140.]