Ned Vaughan, from his lair on the hill, could see the officers in their magnificent new uniforms, their swords flashing as they led their men. A hundred thousand bayonets were gleaming in the sparkling December sun. Magnificent horses in rich tasselled trappings were plunging and prancing with the excitement of marching hosts, some of them keeping time to the throb of regimental bands. The bands were playing now, all of them, a band for every thousand men, the shrill scream of their bugles and the roar of their drums sending a mighty chorus into the heavens that echoed ominously against the silent hills. And flags, flags, flags, were streaming in billowy waves of red, white and blue, as far as the eye could reach! "Isn't that pretty, boys!" Ned sighed admiringly. Tom lifted his solemn eyes from the grass. "Lord, Lord, look at them new warm clothes, an' my elbows a-freezin' in this cold wind!" "Ain't it a picture?" "What a pity to spile it!" A ripple of admiration ran along the crouching lines as fingers softly felt for the triggers of their guns. A quick order from John Vaughan's Colonel sent their battery of artillery rattling and bounding into position. The cannoneers sprang to their mounts. A handsome young fellow missed his foothold and fell beneath the wheels. The big iron tire crushed his neck and the blood from his mouth splashed into John's face. The men on the guns didn't turn their heads to look back. Their eyes were searching the brown hills before them. The long roll beat from a thousand drums, the call of the buglers rang over the valley--and then the strange, solemn silence that comes before the shock--the moment when cowards collapse and the brave falter. John Vaughan's soul rose in a fierce challenge to fate. If he died it was well; if he lived it was the same. He had ceased to care. At exactly eight-thirty, General Meade hurled his division, supported by Doubleday and Gibbon, against Jackson's weakest point, the right of the Confederate lines. Their aim was to seize an opposing hill. The curving lines of grey were silent until the charging hosts were well advanced in deadly range and then the brown hills flamed and roared in front and on their flanks. The blue lines were mowed down in swaths as though the giant figure of Death had suddenly swung his scythe from the fog banks in the sky. Again and again came those awful volleys of musketry and artillery cross-firing on the rushing lines. The men staggered and recovered, reformed and charged again over the dead bodies of their comrades carrying the crest for a moment. They captured a flag and a handful of prisoners only to be driven back down the hill with losses more frightful in retreat than when they breasted the storm.