Suddenly, from bushes, trees, and fences there is a rattle of musketry. General Evans's skirmishers are firing. There are jets of flame and smoke, and a strange humming in the air. There is another rattle, a roll, a volley. The cannon join. The first great battle has begun. General Hunter hastens to the spot, and is wounded almost at the first volley, and compelled to leave the field. The contest suddenly grows fierce. The Rhode Island boys push on to closer quarters, and the Rebels under General Evans give way from a thicket to a fence, from a fence to a knoll. General Bee arrives with his brigade to help General Evans. You see him swing up into line west of Evans, towards the haystacks by Dogan's house. He is in such a position that he can pour a fire upon the flank of the Rhode Island boys, who are pushing Evans. It is a galling fire, and the brave fellows are cut down by the raking shots from the haystacks. They are almost overwhelmed. But help is at hand. The Seventy-first New York, the Second New Hampshire, and the First Rhode Island, all belonging to Burnside's brigade, move toward the haystacks. They bring their guns to a level, and the rattle and roll begin. There are jets of flame, long lines of light, white clouds, unfolding and expanding, rolling over and over, and rising above the tree-tops. Wilder the uproar. Men fall, tossing their arms; some leap into the air, some plunge headlong, falling like logs of wood or lumps of lead. Some reel, stagger, and tumble; others lie down gently as to a night's repose, unheeding the din, commotion, and uproar. They are bleeding, torn, and mangled. Legs, arms, bodies, are crushed. They see nothing. They cannot tell what has happened. The air is full of fearful noises. An unseen storm sweeps by. The trees are splintered, crushed, and broken as if smitten by thunderbolts. Twigs and leaves fall to the ground. There is smoke, dust, wild talking, shouting, hissings, howlings, explosions. It is a new, strange, unanticipated experience to the soldiers of both armies, far different from what they thought it would be.