“The line will be solid in a few minutes,” he said, and while the battle was still at its height on the long front he touched hands with Hill.  Then both drove forward with all their might against Hancock, rushing to the charge, with the Southern fire and recklessness of death that had proved irresistible on so many fields.  The advance, despite the most desperate efforts of Hancock and his generals, was stopped.  Then he was driven back.  All the ground gained at so much cost was lost and the Southern troops, shouting in exultation, pushed on, pouring in a terrible rifle fire.  Longstreet, in his eagerness, rode a little ahead of his troops to see the result.  Turning back, he was mistaken in the smoke by his own men for a Northern cavalryman, and they fired upon him, just as Jackson had been shot down by his own troops in the dusk at Chancellorsville.

The leader fell from his horse, wounded severely, and the troops advancing to victory became confused.  The rumor spread that Longstreet had been killed.  There was no one to give orders, and the charge stopped.  Harry and a half-dozen others who had seen the accident or heard of it, galloped to Lee, who at once rode into the very thick of the command, giving personal orders and sending his aides right and left with others.  The whole division was reformed under his eye, and he sent it anew to the attack.

The battle now closed in with the full strength of both armies.  Hancock strove to keep his place.  The valiant Wadsworth had been killed already.  The dense thickets largely nullified Grant’s superior numbers.  Lee poured everything on Hancock, who was driven from every position.  Fighting furiously behind a breastwork built the night before, he was driven from that too.

Often in the dense shades the soldiers met one another face to face and furious struggles hand-to-hand ensued.  Bushes and trees, set on fire by the shells, burned slowly like torches put there to light up the ghastly scene of man’s bravery and folly.  Jenkins, a Confederate general, was killed and colonels and majors fell by the dozen.  But neither side would yield, and Grant hurried help to his hard-pressed troops.

Harry had been grazed on the shoulder by a bullet, but his horse was unharmed, and he kept close to Lee, who continued to direct the battle personally.  He knew that they were advancing.  Once more the genius of the great Confederate leader was triumphing.  Grant, the redoubtable and tenacious, despite his numbers, could set no trap for him!  Instead he had been drawn into battle on a field of Lee’s own choosing.

The conflict had now continued for a long time, and was terrible in all its aspects.  It was far past noon, and for miles a dense cloud of smoke hung over the Wilderness, which was filled with the roar of cannon, the crash of rifles and the shouts of two hundred thousand men in deadly conflict.  The first meeting of the two great protagonists of the war, Lee and Grant, was sanguinary and terrible, beyond all expectation.