Now Harry for the first time saw his general show excitement.  Lee galloped to the head of one of the Virginia regiments, and ranging his horse beside the colors snatched off his hat and pointed it at the enemy.  It was a picture which with all the hero worship of youth he never forgot.  It did not even grow dim in his memory—­the great leader on horseback, his hat in his hand, his eyes fiery, his face flushed, his hand pointing the way to victory or death.

It was an occasion, too, when the personal presence of a leader meant everything.  Every man knew Lee and tremendous rolling cheers greeted his arrival, cheers that could be heard above the thunder of cannon and rifles.  It infused new courage into them and they gathered themselves for the rush upon their victorious foe.

Gordon of Georgia, spurring through the smoke, seized Lee’s horse by the bridle.  He did not mean to have their commander-in-chief sacrificed in a charge.

“This is no place for you, General Lee!” he cried.  “Go to the rear!”

Lee did not yet turn, and Gordon shouted: 

“These men are Virginians and Georgians who have never failed.  Go back, I entreat you!”

Then Gordon turned to the troops and cried, as he rose on his toes in his stirrups: 

“Men, you will not fail now!”

Back came the answering shout: 

“No!  No!” and the whole mass of troops burst into one thunderous, echoing cry: 

“Lee to the rear!  Lee to the rear!  Lee to the rear!”

Nor would they move until Lee turned and rode back.  Then, led by Gordon, they charged straight upon their foe, who met them with an equal valor.  All day long the battle of Spottsylvania, equal in fierceness and desperation to that of the Wilderness, swayed to and fro.  To Harry as he remembered them they were much alike.  Charge and defense, defense and charge.  Here they gained a little, and there they lost a little.  Now they were stumbling through sanguinary thickets, and then they rushed across little streams that ran red.

The firing was rapid and furious to an extraordinary degree.  The air rained shell and bullets.  Areas of forest between the two armies were mowed down.  More than one large tree was cut through entirely by rifle bullets.  Other trees here, as in the Wilderness, caught fire and flamed high.

Midnight put an end to the battle, with neither gaining the victory and both claiming it.  Harry had lost another horse, killed under him, and now he walked almost dazed over the terrible field of Spottsylvania, where nearly thirty thousand men had fallen, and nothing had yet been decided.