“Don’t stay here any longer,” he shouted in his ear.  “Ride to General Lee and tell him we’re victorious at this point for the day at least!”

Harry saluted and galloped away through the thickets.  Behind him the battle still roared and thundered.  A stray shell burst just in front of him, and another just behind him, but he and his horse were untouched.  Once or twice he glanced back and it looked as if the Wilderness were on fire, but he knew that it was instead the blaze of battle.  He saw also that Ewell was still moving forward, winning more ground, and his heart swelled with gladness.

How proud Jackson would have been had he been able to see the valor and skill of his old lieutenant!  Perhaps his ghost did really hover over the Wilderness, where a year before he had fallen in the moment of his greatest triumph!  Harry urged his horse into a gallop.  All his faculties now became acute.  He was beyond the zone of fire, but the roar of the battle behind him seemed as loud as ever.  Yet it was steadily moving back on the main Union lines, and there could be no doubt of Ewell’s continued success.

The curves of the low hills and the thick bushes hid everything from Harry’s sight, as he rode swiftly through the winding paths of the Wilderness.  When the tumult sank at last he heard a new thunder in front of him, and now he knew that the Southern center under Hill had been attacked also, and with the greatest fierceness.

As Harry approached, the roar of the second battle became terrific.  Uncertain where General Lee would now be, he rode through the sleet of steel, and found Hill engaged with the very flower of the Northern army.  Hancock, the hero of Gettysburg, was making desperate exertions to crush him, pouring in brigade after brigade, while Sheridan, regardless of thickets, made charge after charge with his numerous cavalry.

Harry remained in the rear on his horse, watching this furious struggle.  The day had become much darker, either from clouds or the vast volume of smoke, and the thickets were so dense that the officers often could not see their enemy at all, only their own men who stood close to them.  The struggle was vast, confused, carried on under appalling conditions.  The charging horsemen were sometimes swept from the saddle by bushes and not by bullets.  Infantrymen stepped into a dark ooze left by spring rains, and pulling themselves out, charged, black to the waist with mud.  Sometimes the field pieces became mired, and men and horses together dragged them to firmer ground.

Grant here, as before Ewell, continually reinforced his veterans, but Hill, although he was not able to advance, held fast.  The difficult nature of the ground that Lee had chosen helped him.  In marsh and thickets it was impossible for the more numerous enemy to outflank him.  Harry saw Hill twice, a slender man, who had suffered severe wounds but one of the greatest fighters in the Southern army.  He had been ordered to hold the center, and Harry knew now that he would do it, for the day at least.  Night was not very far away, and Grant was making no progress.