It was a mile and a quarter—­it was a march of fully twenty minutes—­to the edge of the woodland, the proposed cover of the column.  Ten minutes before this point was reached a tiny puff of smoke showed on the brow of the hostile ridge; then, at an interval of several seconds, followed the sound of a distant explosion; then, almost immediately, came the screech of a rifled shell.  Every man who heard it swiftly asked himself, “Will it strike me?” But even as the words were thought out it had passed, high in air, clean to the rear, and burst harmlessly.  A few faces turned upward and a few eyes glanced backward, as if to see the invisible enemy.  But there was no pause in the column; it flowed onward quietly, eagerly, and with business-like precision; it gave forth no sound but the trampling of feet and the muttering of the officers, “Steady, men!  Forward, men!”

The Confederates, however, had got their range.  A half minute later four puffs of smoke dotted the ridge, and a flight of hoarse humming shrieks tore the air.  A little aureole cracked and splintered over the First, followed by loud cries of anguish and a brief, slight confusion.  The voice of an officer rose sharply out of the flurry, “Close up, Company A!  Forward, men!” The battalion column resumed its even formation in an instant, and tramped unitedly onward, leaving behind it two quivering corpses and a wounded man who tottered rearward.

Then came more screeches, and a shell exploded over the highroad, knocking a gunner lifeless from his carriage.  The brigade commander glanced anxiously along his batteries, and addressed a few words to his chief of artillery.  Presently the four Napoleons set forward at a gallop for the wood, while the four Parrotts wheeled to the right, deployed, and advanced across the fields, inclining toward the left of the enemy.  Next, Taylor’s regiment (the Eighth) halted, fronted, faced to the right, and filed off in column of march at a double-quick until it had gained the rear of the Parrotts, when it fronted again, and pushed on in support.  A quarter of a mile further on these guns went into battery behind the brow of a little knoll, and opened fire.  Four companies of the Eighth spread out to the right as skirmishers, and commenced stealing toward the ridge, from time to time measuring the distance with rifle-balls.  The remainder of the regiment lay down in line between the Parrotts and the forest.  Far away to the right, five companies of cavalry showed themselves, manoeuvring as if they proposed to turn the left flank of the Southerners.  The attack on this side was in form and in operation.

Meantime the Confederate fire had divided.  Two guns pounded away at Taylor’s feint, while two shelled the main column.  The latter was struck repeatedly; more than twenty men dropped silent or groaning out of the hurrying files; but the survivors pushed on without faltering and without even caring for the wounded.  At last a broad belt of green branches rose between the regiments and the ridge; and the rebel gunners, unable to see their foe, dropped suddenly into silence.