“Colonel, this is saving my life against my will,” remonstrated Fitz Hugh.

“Go!” ordered Waldron, imperiously.  “Time is precious.”

Fitz Hugh dashed down the slope to the right at a gallop.  The brigade commander turned tranquilly, and followed the march of his echelon.  The second and decisive crisis of the little battle was approaching, and to understand it we must glance at the ground on which it was to be fought.  Two hostile lines were marching toward each other along the broad, gently rounded crest of the hill and at right angles to its general course.  Between these lines, but much the nearest to the Union troops, a spacious road came up out of the forest in front, crossed the ridge, swept down the smooth decline in rear, and led to a single wooden bridge over a narrow but deep rivulet.  On either hand the road was hedged in by a close board fence, four feet or so in height.  It was for the possession of this highway that the approaching lines were about to shed their blood.  If the Confederates failed to win it all their artillery would be lost, and their army captured or dispersed.

The two parties came on without firing.  The soldiers on both sides were veterans, cool, obedient to orders, intelligent through long service, and able to reserve all their resources for a short-range and final struggle.  Moreover, the fences as yet partially hid them from each other, and would have rendered all aim for the present vague and uncertain.

“Forward, Fifth!” shouted Waldron.  “Steady.  Reserve your fire.”  Then, as the regiment came up to the fence, he added, “Halt; right dress.  Steady, men.”

Meantime he watched the advancing array with an eager gaze.  It was a noble sight, full of moral sublimity, and worthy of all admiration.  The long, lean, sunburned, weather-beaten soldiers in ragged gray stepped forward, superbly, their ranks loose, but swift and firm, the men leaning forward in their haste, their tattered slouch hats pushed backward, their whole aspect business-like and virile.  Their line was three battalions strong, far outflanking the Fifth, and at least equal to the entire echelon.  When within thirty or forty yards of the further fence they increased their pace to nearly a double-quick, many of them stooping low in hunter fashion, and a few firing.  Then Waldron rose in his stirrups and yelled, “Battalion! ready—­aim—­aim low.  Fire!”

There was a stunning roar of three hundred and fifty rifles, and a deadly screech of bullets.  But the smoke rolled out, the haste to reload was intense, and none could mark what execution was done.  Whatever the Confederates may have suffered, they bore up under the volley, and they came on.  In another minute each of those fences, not more than twenty-five yards apart, was lined by the shattered fragment of a regiment, each firing as fast as possible into the face of the other.  The Fifth bled fearfully:  it had five of its ten company commanders shot dead in three minutes; and its loss in other officers and in men fell scarcely short of this terrible ratio.  On its left the Seventh and the Tenth were up, pouring in musketry, and receiving it in a fashion hardly less sanguinary.  No one present had ever seen, or ever afterward saw, such another close and deadly contest.