day was now thought to be lost, and a retreat inevitable. The troops
proved to be friends. Elzeys and Kirby Smith on the way from the
Valley to Manassas, hearing the firing of the guns, left the cars and
hurried to the scene of action. Cheer after cheer now rent the air,
for relief was now at hand. They were put in on the left, but soon
General Kirby Smith fell wounded, and had to be borne from the field.
Other reinforcements were on the way to relieve the pressure that was
convincing to the generals commanding, even, that the troops could not
long endure. The Second and Eighth South Carolina Regiments, under
the command of Colonels Kershaw and Cash, were taken from the line at
Mitchell's Ford and hurried forward. When all the forces, were gotten
well in hand, a general forward movement was made. But the enemy met
it with a determined front. The shrieking and bursting of shells shook
the very earth, while the constant roll of the infantry sounded like
continual peals of heavy thunder. Here and there an explosion, like a
volcanic eruption, told of a caisson being blown up by the bursting of
a shell. The enemy graped the field right and left, and had a decided
advantage in the forenoon when their long range twenty-pounders played
havoc with our advancing and retreating columns, while our small four
and six-pounders could not reach their batteries. But in the after
part of the day, when the contending forces were nearer together,
Rickett's and Griffin's Batteries, the most celebrated at that time
in the Northern Army, could not stand the precision and impetuosity
of Kemper's, the Washington, Stannard's, Pendleton's, and Pelham's
Batteries as they graped the field. The Second and Eighth South
Carolina coming up at a double quick, joined Hampton's Legion, with
Early, Cox, and the troops from the Valley just in time to be of
eminent service at a critical moment. The clear clarion voice
of Kershaw gave the command, "Forward!" and when repeated in the
stentorian voice of Cash, the men knew what was expected of them,