Ned Abbott's company and mine were ordered to report forward, and deployed our skirmishers on the garden fence, with reserves behind; and there, for a couple of hours, we watched the swayings of the artillery fight, timing the explosion of the heavy shells, and watching the varying intervals between the shots of the rebel batteries. At last, as the sun seemed not more than an hour high, and just as Ned Abbott, lying by my side in the rear of our skirmishers, had expressed his disbelief in the fight's coming off that afternoon, an orderly, followed by Pitman of Banks' staff, came up to where Gordon was sitting on his horse near us, watching the field through his glass; and it seemed, for the first time, that something was going wrong. I was near enough to hear that he wanted a regiment of Gordon's brigade to report, as I understood it, to Banks at the centre. "You must take him your regiment, then," said Gordon to Colonel Andrews. Abbott and I jumped to our feet, and were ordered to rally our men on the battalion; and hardly, panting and breathless, had we resumed our places in line when the regiment advanced by the right of companies to the front, until we had cleared the garden, and then by company into line. Then commenced the furious and incessant roll and crash of musketry, leaving, as Copeland expressed it, no interval in which a single other shot could have been inserted. We plunged over the ditch and crashed through a wood, out of which came Crane of the Third Wisconsin, covered with blood, and reeling in his saddle, until after about a quarter of a mile we came to a fence with a wheat-field beyond. In this, a brigade of rebels were in line, but what they were firing at we couldn't see. We opened fire and then were ordered to cease--why, I don't know, as I could see no one between us and them. But, as their line advanced, we soon re-opened fire, as the converging storm of balls hailed upon us.