In the centre of this mass of struggling maniacs the men were fighting with gun swabs, handspikes, clubbed muskets, stones and fists. The night brought no rest, no pause to succor the wounded or bury the dead. Through the black murk of the darkness they fought on and on until at last the men who were living sank in their tracks at three o'clock before day and neither line had given from this "Bloody Angle." The rain ceased to fall, the clouds lifted and the waning moon came out. Ned Vaughan passing over the outer field saw a long line of men lying in regular ranks in an odd position. He turned to the Commander. "Why don't you move that line of battle now to make it conform to your own?" "They're all dead men," was the quiet answer. "They are Georgia soldiers." John Vaughan, on the other side, crossing an open space, came on a blue battle line asleep rank on rank, skirmishers in front and battle line behind, all asleep on their arms. There was no one near to answer a question. They were all dead. The blue and grey men were talking to one another now. "Well, Johnnie," a Yankee called through the shadows, "I can't admit that you're inspired of God, but after to-day I must say that you are possessed of the devil." "Same to you, Yank! Your papers say we're all demoralized anyhow--so to-morrow you oughtn't have no trouble finishin' us!" "Ah, shut up now, Johnnie, and go to sleep!" "All right, good-night, Yank, hope ye'll rest well. We'll give ye hell at daylight!" For five days Grant swung his blue lines in circles of blood trying in vain to break Lee's ranks and gave it up. He had lost at Spottsylvania eighteen thousand more men. The stolid, silent man of iron nerves was terribly moved by the frightful losses his gallant army had sustained. He watched with anguish the endless lines of wagons bearing his stricken men from the field. Lee's forces had been handled with such consummate and terrible skill, his crushing numbers had made little impression. Grant was facing a new force in the world. The ordinary methods of war which he had used with success in the West went here for nothing. The devotion of Lee's men was a mania. Small as his army was the bulldog fighter saw with amazement that it was practically unconquerable in a square, hand-to-hand struggle. Once more he was forced to maneuver for advantage in position. He ordered a new flank movement by the North Anna River. He had opened his fight with Lee on the 5th, and in two weeks he had lost thirty-six thousand men, without gaining an inch in the execution of his original plan of thrusting himself between the Confederate leader and his Capital. Lee's army was apparently as terrible a fighting machine as on the day they had met. A truce now followed to bury the dead and care for the wounded. So sure had Grant been of crushing his opponent he had refused to agree to this during the struggle.