Bullets in sheets struck in the Union ranks.  Hundreds of men went down.  Dick heard the thud of lead and steel on flesh, and the sudden cries of those who were struck.  It needs no small courage to hold fast against more than ten thousand men rushing forward at full speed and bent upon victory or death.

Dick felt all the pulses in his temples beating hard, and he had a horrible impulse to break and run, but pride kept him firm.  As an officer, he had a small sword, and snatching it out he waved it, while at the same time he shouted to the men to meet the charge.

The Union troops returned the fire.  Thousands of bullets were sent against the ranks of the rushing enemy.  The gunners sprang to their guns and the deep roar of the cannon rose above the crash of the small arms.  But the Southern troops, the rebel yell still rolling through the woods, came on at full speed and struck the Union front.

It seemed to Dick that he was conscious of an actual physical shock.  Tanned faces and gleaming eyes were almost against his own.  He looked into the muzzles of rifles, and he saw the morning sun flashing along the edges of bayonets.  But the regiment, although torn by bullets, did not give ground.  The charge shivered against them, and the Southern troops fell back.  Yet it was only for a moment.  They came again to be driven back as before, and then once more they charged, while their resolute foe swung forward to meet them rank to rank.

Dick was not conscious of much except that he shouted continuously to the men to stand firm, and wondered now and then why he had not been hit.  The Union men and their enemy were reeling back and forth, neither winning, neither losing, while the thunder of battle along a long and curving front beat heavily on the drums of every ear.  The smoke, low down, was scattered by the cannon and rifles, but above it gathered in a great cloud that seemed to be shot with fire.

The two colonels, Winchester and Newcomb, were able and valiant men.  Despite their swelling losses they always filled up the ranks and held fast to the ground upon which they had stood when they were attacked.  But for the present they had no knowledge how the battle was going elsewhere.  The enemy just before them allowed no idle moments.

Yet Grant, as happened later on at Shiloh, was taken by surprise.  When the first roar of the battle broke with the dawn he was away conferring with the wounded naval commander, Foote.  His right, under McClernand, had been caught napping, and eight thousand Southern troops striking it with a tremendous impact just as the men snatched up their arms, drove it back in heavy loss and confusion.  Its disaster was increased when a Southern general, Baldwin, led a strong column down a deep ravine near the river and suddenly hurled it upon the wavering Union flank.

Whole regiments retreated now, and guns were lost.  The Southern officers, their faces glowing, shouted to each other that the battle was won.  And still the combat raged without the Union commander, Grant, although he was coming now as fast as he could with the increasing roar of conflict to draw him on.  The battle was lost to the North.  But it might be won back again by a general who would not quit.  Only the bulldog in Grant, the tenacious death grip, could save him now.