Across the level field torn by shot and shell, the regiment swept in grey waves. The gaps filled up silently. They started up the hill and met the sleet of hissing death. The hill top blazed streams of yellow flame through the pall of smoke. Men were falling--not one by one, but in platoons and squads, rolling into heaps of grey blood-soaked flesh and rags. The regiment paused, staggered, reeled and rallied. Haggerty fell just in front of Ned, who was loading and firing with the precision of a machine. If he had a soul--he didn't know it now. The men were ordered to lie down and fire from the ground. Haggerty caught Ned's eye as it glanced along his musket searching for his foe through the cloud of blue black smoke that veiled the world. "Roll me around, Bye," the Irishman cried, "and make a fince out of me--I'm done for." Ned paid no attention to his call, and Haggerty pulled his mangled body down the hill and doubled himself up in front of his friend. "Keep down behind me, Bye," he moaned. "I'll make a good fort for ye!" It was useless to protest, he had erected the fort to suit himself and Ned was fighting now behind it. The sight of his dying friend steadied his nerves and sent a thrill of fierce anger like living fire through his veins. His eye searched the hilltop for his foe. The smoke rolled in dark grey sulphurous clouds down the slope and shut out the sky line. He waited and strained his bloodshot eyes to find an opening. It was no use to waste powder shooting at space. He was too deadly angry now for that. A puff of wind lifted the clouds and the blue men could be seen leaping about their guns. They looked like giants in the smoke fog. Again he fired and loaded, fired and loaded with clock-like, even steady, hand. It was tiresome this ramming an old-fashioned muzzle-loading musket lying flat on the ground. But with each round he was becoming more and more expert in handling the gun. His mouth was black with powder from tearing the paper ends of the cartridges. The sulphurous taste of the powder was in his mouth. From the centre of the field rose the awful Confederate yell again. A regiment of Georgians, led by Gordon were charging. Waiting again for the smoke to clear in front Ned could see the grey waves spread out and caught the sharp word of command as the daring young officers threw their naked swords toward the sky crying: "Forward!" And then they met the storm. From grim, black lips on the hill crest came the answer to their yell--three hundred and forty mighty guns were singing an oratorio of Death and Hell in chorus now from those heights. Half the men seemed to fall at a single crash and still the line closed up and rushed steadily on, firing and loading, firing and loading,--running and staggering, then rallying and pressing on again.