Hours never passed more slowly.  Colonel Kenton had gone back toward the Northern lines, and the boy surmised that he would be one of the first in the attack at dawn.  He began to wonder if dawn would ever really come.  Stars and a fair moon were out, and as nearly as he could judge from them it must be about three o’clock in the morning.  Yet it seemed to him that he had been lying there at least twelve hours.

He shut his eyes again, but sleep was as far from him as ever.  After another long and almost unendurable period he opened them once more, and it seemed to him that there was a faint tint of gray in the east.  He sat up, and looking a long time, he was sure of it.  The gray was deepening and broadening, and at its center it showed a tint of silver.  The dawn was at hand, and every nerve in the boy’s body thrilled with excitement and apprehension.

A murmur and a shuffling sound arose all around him.  The sleepers were awake, and they stood up, thousands of them.  Cold food was given to them, and they ate it hastily.  But they fondled their rifles and muskets, and turned their faces toward the point where the Northern army lay, and from which no sound came.

Dick shivered all over.  His head burned and his nerves throbbed.  Too late now!  He had hoped all through the long night that something would happen to carry a warning to that unsuspecting army.  Nothing had happened, and in five minutes the attack would begin.

He stood up at his full height and sought to pierce with his eyes the foliage in front of him, but the massed ranks of the Southerners now stood between, and the batteries were wheeling into line.

A great throb and murmur ran through the forest.  Dick looked upon faces brown with the sun, and eyes gleaming with the fierce passion of victory and revenge.  They were going to avenge Henry and Donelson and all the long and mortifying retreat from Kentucky.  Dick saw them straining and looking eagerly at their officers for the word to advance.

As if by a concerted signal the long and mellow peal of many trumpets came from the front, the officers uttered the shout to charge, the wild and terrible rebel yell swelled from forty thousand throats, and the Southern army rushed upon its foe.

The red dawn of Shiloh had come.

CHAPTER XV

THE RED DAWN OF SHILOH

Dick stood appalled when he heard that terrible shout in the dawn, and the crash of cannon and rifles rolling down upon the Union lines.  It was already a shout of triumph and, as he gazed, he saw through the woods the red line of flame, sweeping on without a halt.

The surprise had been complete.  Hardee, leading the Southern advance, struck Peabody’s Northern brigade and smashed it up instantly.  The men did not have time to seize their rifles.  They had no chance to form into ranks, and the officers themselves, as they shouted commands, were struck down.  Men killed or wounded were falling everywhere.  Almost before they had time to draw a free breath the remnants of the brigade were driven upon those behind it.