Into the great chasm went white troops and black troops, charging together, and then Dick suddenly cried in horror.  Those were veterans on the other side, and, recovering quickly from the surprise, they rushed forward their batteries and riflemen.  Mahone, a little, alert man, commanded them, and in an instant they deluged the pit, afterward famous under the name of “The Crater,” with fire.  The steep slope held back the Union troops and from the edges everywhere the men in gray poured a storm of shrapnel and canister and bullets into the packed masses.

Colonel Winchester groaned aloud, and looked at his men who were eager to advance to the rescue, but it was evident to Dick that his orders held him, and they stood in silence gazing at the appalling scene in the crater.  A tunnel had been run directly under the Confederates, and then a huge mine had been exploded.  All that part was successful, but the Union army had made a deep pit, more formidable than the earthwork itself.

Never had men created a more terrible trap for themselves.  The name, the crater, was well deserved.  It was a seething pit of death filled with smoke, and from which came shouts and cries as the rim of it blazed with the fire of those who were pouring in such a stream of metal.  Inside the pit the men could only cower low in the hope that the hurricane of missiles would pass over their heads.

“Good God!” cried Dick.  “Why don’t we advance to help them!”

“Here we go now, and we may need help ourselves!” said Warner.

Again the trumpets were sending forth their shrill call to battle and death, and, as the colonel waved his sword, the regiment charged forward with others to rescue the men in the crater.  A bright sun was shining now, and the Southern leaders saw the heavy, advancing column.  They were rapidly bringing up more guns and more riflemen, and, shifting a part of their fire, a storm of death blew in the faces of those who would go to the rescue.

As at Cold Harbor, the men in blue could not live before such a fire at close quarters, and the regiments were compelled to recoil, while those who were left alive in the crater surrendered.  The trumpets sounded the unwilling call to withdraw, and the Winchester men, many of them shedding tears of grief and rage, fell back to their old place, while from some distant point, rising above the dying fire of the cannon and rifles, came the long, fierce rebel yell, full of defiance and triumph.

The effect upon Dick of the sight in the crater was so overwhelming that he was compelled to lie down.

“Why do we do such things?” he exclaimed, after the faintness passed.  “Why do we waste so many lives in such vain efforts?”

“We have to try,” replied Warner, gloomily.  “The thing was all right as far as it went, but it broke against a hedge of fire and steel, crowning a barrier that we had created for ourselves.”