The Confederates now charged the Federal centre, and for an hour and a half the fierce conflict raged--charge and countercharge by men of equal courage led by dauntless officers. The Union right wing had already been crumpled in hopeless confusion, the centre had yielded, the left wing alone was holding its own. It looked as if the whole Union army on the South side of the Chickahominy would be wiped out. At Seven Pines Heintzelman had made a stubborn stand. General Keyes saw a hill between the lines of battle which might save the day if he could reach it in time. He must take men between two battle lines to do so. The Confederate Commander, divining his intention, poured a galling fire into his ranks and began a race with him for the heights. Keyes won the race and formed his line in the nick of time. The tremendous fire poured down from this new position was too much for the assaulting Southern column and it halted. The Confederate forces had forced the Federal lines back two miles as the river fog and the darkness slowly rose and enveloped the field. General Johnston ordered his men to sleep on the fields and camps they had captured. A minute later he was hurled from his horse by an exploding shell and was borne from the field dangerously wounded. The first day's struggle had ended in reverses for the invading enemy. The Confederates had captured ten guns, six thousand muskets, and five hundred prisoners, besides driving McClellan's forces two miles from the opening battle lines. Between the two smoke-grimed, desperate armies locked thus in close embrace there could be no truce for burying the fallen or rescuing the wounded. Over the rain-soaked fields and woods for two miles behind the Confederate front lay the dead, the dying, and the wounded, the blue side by side with their foes in grey. Dim fog-ringed lanterns flickered feebly here and there like wounded fireflies over the dark piles on the ground. The Southern ambulance corps did its best at its new trade. Their long lines of wagons began to creep into Richmond and fill the hospitals. Shivering white-faced women, wives, sweethearts, mothers, sisters were there looking for their own, praying and hoping. All day they had shivered in their rooms at the deep boom of cannon, whose thunder rattled the glass in the windows through which they gazed on the deserted streets. It was the first lesson in real war, this hand to hand grip of the two giants whose struggle must decide the fate of Richmond. The wagons left their loads and rattled back over the rough cobble stones and out on the muddy roads to the front again. The night would be all too short for their work.