A half-dozen shots came from the front, and then a half-dozen or so in reply.  Harry saw pink flashes, and then spirals of smoke rising.  More shots were fired presently on their right, and then others on their left.  The Northern riflemen were evidently on a long line, and intended to make a thorough test of their enemy’s strength.  Harry had no doubt that Shepard was there.  He would surely come to the point where his enemy was nearest, and his eyes and ears would be the keenest of all.

The little skirmish continued for a few minutes, extending along a winding line of nearly a mile through the thickets.  Only two or three were wounded and nobody killed on the Southern side.  Harry understood thoroughly, as Ewell had said, that the sharpshooters of the enemy were merely feeling for them.  They wanted to know if a strong force was there, and now they knew.

The firing ceased, not in dying shots, but abruptly.  The Wilderness in front of them returned to silence, broken only by the rippling leaves.  Harry knew that the Northern sharpshooters had discovered all they wanted, and were now returning to their leaders.

Ewell turned his horse and rode back toward the main camp, his staff following.  The cooking fires had been put out, the lines were formed and every gun was in position.  As little noise as possible was allowed, while they waited for Grant; not for Grant himself, but for one of his lieutenants, pushed forward by his master hand.

Harry and most of the staff officers dismounted, holding their horses by the bridle.  The young lieutenant often searched the thickets with his glasses, but he saw nothing.  Nevertheless he knew that the enemy would come.  Grant having set out to find his foe, would never draw back when he found him.

A much longer period of silence than he had expected passed.  The sun, flaming red, was moving on toward the zenith, and no sounds of battle came from either right or left.  The suspense became acute, almost unbearable, and it was made all the more trying by the blindness of that terrible forest.  Harry felt at times as if he would rather fight in the open fields; but he knew that his commander-in-chief was right when he drew Grant into the shades of the Wilderness.

When the suspense became so great that heavy weights seemed to be pressing upon his nerves, rifle shots were fired in front, and skirmishers uttered the long, shrill rebel yell.  Then above both shots and shouts rose the far, clear call of a bugle.

“Here they come!” Harry heard Ewell say to himself, and the next moment the sound of human voices was drowned in the thunder of great guns and the crash of fifty thousand rifles.  The battle was so sudden and the charge so swift that it seemed to leap into full volume in an instant.  Warren, a resolute and daring general, led the Northern column and it struck with such weight and force that the Southern division was driven back.  Harry felt it yielding, as if the ground were sliding under his feet.