Through all this the Federal troops progressed toward a union of their attacking columns. Tyler had already spoken to McDowell, and the two forces were drawing nearer and nearer together. Victory appeared so certain that nothing but a junction of the two columns was wanting to a glorious result, and this now seemed inevitable. The clamor of the artillery was checked for a little time on both sides. Red-handed death cannot rush panting on the track forever. Black-mouthed guns will get too foul for belching fire, and the swarthy men who feed them must have breathing time. As the fight flagged, and the men paused to draw breath, their terrible suffering was apparent in the parched lips that had tasted water but once through all that hot day, and the bloodshot eyes with which each man seemed to beseech his comrade for drink which no one had to give. Still, with dry lips and throats full of dust, they talked over a thousand details of valor performed on the field. They spoke sadly of the loss of brave Cameron, the wounding of Hunter, the fall of Haggerty and Slocum, the doubtful fate of noble young Wilcox. They discussed the impetuous dash and resolute stand of the Irishmen, the murderous shock sustained by the Rhode Island regiments, how the Hignlanders had done justice to their own warlike traditions, and the Connecticut Third had crowned its State with honors. They told how Heintzelman had stooped down from his war-horse to have his wounded wrist bound up, refusing to dismount—of the intrepid Burnside, and of Sprague, the patriotic young Governor, who led on the forces his generosity had raised, to one victorious charge after another, till with his own hands he spiked the Rhode Island guns when compelled to leave them to the enemy. So tranquil was the field during this short period of rest, that the soldiers who had foreborne to throw their rations away in the march, unslung their haversacks and sat down upon the grass to share the contents with their less prudent companions; those who had been fortunate enough to pick up the enemy’s haversacks, cast off in retreat, added their contents to the scanty store. While a few thus snatched a mouthful of food, others climbed up the tall trees and took a triumphant view of the vast battle-field their valor had conquered. The scene of carnage which it presented was awful. Dead and dying men heaped together on the red earth, crippled horses struggling desperately in their death-throes, wounded men lying helplessly on the grass to which they had been dragged from under the hoofs of the war-chargers—all this grouped where the angry waves of battle had rolled down the beautiful valley, with its back-ground of mountains, looking immovable and grandly tranquil against the sky, was a picture which no man who saw it will ever forget.