With hands and faces blackened by the smoke and dust of battle those men
stood devotedly to their posts, their ranks thinned by every assault,
but their aim as fatal as ever. But one dread possessed them: ammunition
ran short, and there were no supplies. In the intervals between the
enemy's assaults the cartridge-boxes of dead comrades along the line and
in the open field, where were the fierce struggles of the morning, were
emptied of their contents to replenish the failing stock of the
survivors. More precious than food and water, though they were sorely
needed, were these inheritances from the dead.
The long afternoon wore slowly away. Night could not come too soon, but
it seemed that never before was it so tardy. Officers and men were
tortured by thirst. Their tongues were swollen and their lips black and
distended, often to bursting. Speech became difficult or absolutely
impossible. Officers mumbled their commands, and prayed silently for
darkness to save them from enforced surrender or flight when the last
cartridge should be spent.
Meantime, the relentless but cautious foe was carefully feeling his way
around the flanks, apparently unwilling to venture boldly into the rear
of the little army which he could not move by attack in front. A group
of officers stood by their horses in rear of Hazen's brigade when the
crack of an Enfield rifle was heard from the woods in rear across the
open field. A bullet came whizzing into the group and killed a colonel's
horse.
Pages:
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182