It is impossible to describe, in such form that it can be realized by the reader, this fiercest of battle-fields for the two hours which followed the first attack. Many men felt it, and of those who live to tell the tale, all will remember it; but it may be said that no man saw it. The canvas best depicting it would be deprived of all the essentials of a picture, and merely made a chaos of destruction, with here the glint of a gun and there the flash of a sabre; here a momentary view of a black piece of heavy artillery, and there a head, an arm and a leg of one of the combatants; here a puff of smoke, and there a volley of belching flame--but all indistinct, terrible and indescribable. Solid shot, conical shell and spherical case went humming, hurtling and howling through the air, blotting out rebels and slaying loyalists. The leaden messengers of the sharp-shooters went shrieking to their living targets, killing, crippling and intimidating; buck, ball and Minie bullets missed and made their marks; and the rattling volleys of companies and platoons became at length blended in one general and irregular burst of all destructive sounds known to modern warfare. The Union ranks were of course sadly thinned by the murderous discharges from those of the rebels, even if their own fire was so effective. The odds in point of numbers and weight of fire was heavily against them, and they knew it. The prestige of success was not theirs, for though the enemy had been beaten in almost every trial of arms since the first landing on the Peninsula, yet the irresistible force of circumstances (and what the world will always believe _blunders_) had prevented their reaping the fruits of those repeated victories, and the great object of the expedition--Richmond--had been daily receding and was now apparently out of reach. The brilliant flank movement which McClellan was executing, seemed to them to be a simple retreat which was to take the remains of the Army of the Potomac to the James River for the purpose of an immediate embarkation and abandonment of the campaign. Men less heroic would have grown disheartened and struck feebly in the midst of so many causes of discouragement; and the able review of the Campaign on the Peninsula, by a true man and a soldier, the Prince de Joinville, shows that even with his past knowledge of their bravery and endurance _he_ would not have been surprised to see the spirit of the whole army sinking under sufferings, wrongs and disasters. Perhaps such would have been the case, had they had less confidence in their leaders; but while that existed there could be nothing like demoralization; and if there has ever been a day since that time, when the same noble body of men and the others who have been joined with or replaced them, have displayed that hopeless deterioration of efficiency as an army, the fault has lain in their being led by men in whom they lacked confidence