And the order went pealing down the line, "Ready! Close ranks! Charge
bayonets! Forward! Double-quick, march!"--and away they went, under a
scattering fire, in one compact line till within one hundred feet of the
fort, when the storm of death broke upon them. Every gun belched forth
its great shot and shell; every rifle whizzed out its sharp-singing,
death-freighted messenger. The men wavered not for an
instant;--forward,--forward they went; plunged into the ditch; waded
through the deep water, no longer of muddy hue, but stained crimson with
their blood; and commenced to climb the parapet. The foremost line fell,
and then the next, and the next. The ground was strewn with the wrecks
of humanity, scattered prostrate, silent, where they fell,--or rolling
under the very feet of the living comrades who swept onward to fill
their places. On, over the piled-up mounds of dead and dying, of wounded
and slain, to the mouth of the battery; seizing the guns; bayoneting the
gunners at their posts; planting their flag and struggling around it;
their leader on the walls, sword in hand, his blue eyes blazing, his
fair face aflame, his clear voice calling out, "Forward, my brave
boys!"--then plunging into the hell of battle before him. Forward it
was. They followed him, gathered about him, gained an angle of the fort,
and fought where he fell, around his prostrate body, over his peaceful
heart,--shielding its dead silence by their living, pulsating
ones,--till they, too, were stricken down; then hacked, hewn, battered,
mangled, heroic, yet overcome, the remnant was beaten back.
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