Our rifled guns had just been firing at a Federal battery which we could see, up on the hill in front of us. Watching the effect of the shots, we saw one of the caissons blown up, and a gun disabled, and soon confusion. Somebody remarked, "how easy it would be to take that battery, if any of our infantry were in reach." Just then, we heard loud cheering, which sounded to us, to be up in the woods, on our left, where Hill's men were. Someone instantly cried out, "There it goes now! Hill's men are going to take those guns." We eagerly gathered at the works, some distance to the left of our guns, where we could see better, and stood gazing up at the edge of the field, expecting every moment to see Hill's troops burst out of the woods, and rush upon these guns. Our attention was absorbed, off there, when, all of a sudden, one of our fellows who happened to glance the other way, yelled, "Good heavens! look out on the right." We all looked! There, pouring out of the woods, yelling like mad men, came the Federal infantry, fast as they could run, rushing straight upon our line. The whole field was blue with them! When we first saw them, the foremost were already within one hundred yards of our works, and aiming for a point about two hundred yards to our right. The breath was about knocked out of us by the suddenness of the surprise! It was not Hill's men charging _them_, but these fellows charging us,--whose yells we had heard, and here they were, right upon us! In two jumps we were at our gun. We had to turn it more to the right, and, with the first shot, blow away a light traverse, which was higher than the level of the gun, before we could bear on their columns. We sent two or three canisters tearing through their ranks; the Texans were blazing away, but, they had got too close to be stopped. The next instant, they surged over our works like a great blue wave, and were inside. ="Texas Will Never Forget Virginia"= So sudden was the surprise that they bayonetted two of the Texan infantry, asleep upon the ground. Soon as they got over they turned, and began to sweep down the works, on the inside, upon our guns. As the Texans forced to retire streamed past our guns, leaving us all alone and unsupported to face the enemy, Lieutenant Anderson said, "Men, the road is only a little way back of us; we must stay here, and stop these people, or the Army is cut in two. Run the guns back and open on them. We can hold them until help comes." We turned the guns round so as to command the approaching enemy, and chocked them with rails; several men snatched up the pile of ammunition, and piled it down before the guns in their new place, then we opened, with double canister.