Two of the Union generals seeking to hold their men were killed. Each side rushed forward reinforcements. A stream of Confederates issued from a wood and flung themselves upon the Union flank. Dick was dazed with the suddenness and ferocity with which the two armies had closed in mortal combat. He could see but little. He was half blinded by the smoke, the flash of rifles and cannon and the dust. Officers and men were falling all around him. The numbers were not so great as at Antietam, but it seemed to him that within the contracted area of Perryville the fight was even more fierce and deadly than it had been on that famous Maryland field. But he was conscious of one thing. They were being borne back. Tears of rage ran down his face. Was it always to be this way? Were their numbers never to be of any avail? He heard some one shout for Buell, and he heard some one else shout in reply that he was far away, as he had been at Shiloh. It was true. The wind blowing away from him, Buell had not yet heard a sound from the raging battle, which for its numbers and the time it lasted, was probably the fiercest ever fought on the American continent. The larger Union force, divided by ridges and thick woods from the field, had not heard the fire of a single cannon, and did not know that two armies were engaged in deadly combat so near. Dick kept close to Colonel Winchester and Warner and Pennington were by his side. The sergeant was also near. There was no chance to give or send orders, and the officers, snatching up the rifles of the fallen soldiers, fought almost as privates. The Winchester regiment performed prodigies of valor on that day, and the Ohio lads strove desperately for every inch of ground. It seemed to Dick once that they would hold fast, when he heard in front a tremendous cry of: “On, my boys!” As the smoke lifted a little he saw that it was Colonel Kenton leading his own trained and veteran regiment. Colonel Winchester and Colonel Kenton, in fact, had met face to face, but the Southern regiment was the more numerous and the stronger. Winchester's men were gradually borne back and the colonel gasped to Dick: “Didn't I see your uncle leading on his regiment?” “Yes, it was he. It was his regiment that struck us, but he's hidden now by the smoke.” The Southern rush did not cease. McCook's whole division, between the shallow creeks was driven back, sustaining frightful losses, and it would have been destroyed, but the artillery of Sheridan on the flank suddenly opened upon the Southern victors. The Southerners whirled and charged Sheridan, but his defense was so strong, and so powerful was his artillery that they were compelled to recoil every time with shattered ranks.