Now the firing ceased, and we thought that the enemy had retired; but if they had done so, it was only to give place to a fresh body of troops, which opened upon us a new and terrific fire.  We had nothing to do but to endure and fire into the bushes.  If our line had attempted to cross the railroad, not one of us would have reached it; the Federals also were afraid to advance.

Again there came a lull in the fight, but, as before, it was only premonitory of another tempest of balls.  How many attacks we stood that day nobody on our side clearly knew.  Again the Federal lines gave way, or were relieved.  Our line still held.  The woods were thick with dead.  Comstock was dead.  Bail was dead.  Bee and Box were dead.  Joe Bellot was fearfully wounded.  Many had been carried to the rear, and many yet lay bleeding in our ranks, waiting to be taken out when the fight ceased.  Each man lay behind the best tree he could get; the trees had become more plentiful.  We fired lying, kneeling, standing, sometimes running; but the line held.  If we had had but the smallest breastwork!—­but we had none.

In the afternoon the Federals tried more than once to throw a force around our left—­through the open field; but each time they were driven back by our oblique fire, helped by a battery which we could not see, somewhere in our rear.  I now suppose that before this time Longstreet had formed on Jackson’s right; the sounds of great fighting came from the east and southeast.

We had resisted long enough.  Our cartridges were gone, although our boxes had more than once been replenished, and we had used up the cartridges of our wounded and dead.

Just before the sun went down, the woods suddenly became alive with Yankees.  A deafening volley was poured upon our weakened ranks,—­no longer ranks, but mere clusters of men,—­but the shots went high; before the smoke lifted, the blue men were upon us; they had not waited to reload.

Many of our men had not a cartridge, but the enemy were so near that every shot told.

Their line is thinned; they come still, but in disconnected groups; they are almost in our midst; straight toward me comes a towering man—­his sleeves show the stripes of a sergeant.  His great form and his long red hair are not more conspicuous than the vigour of his bearing.  He makes no pause.  He strikes right and left.  Men fall away from him.  Our group is scattering, some to gain time to load, others in flight.  The great sergeant rushes toward me; his gun rises again in his mighty hands, and the blow descends.  I slip aside; the force of the blow almost carries him to the ground, but he recovers; he comes again; again he swings his gun back over his shoulder, his eyes fixed upon my head where he will strike.  I raise my gun above my head—­at the parry.  Suddenly his expression yields—­a look as if of astonishment succeeds to fixed determination—­and at the same instant his countenance passes through an indescribable change as the blood spouts from his forehead and he falls lifeless at my feet, slain by a shot from my rear[7].