himself, in spite of all the hard usage of war through which he had been,
Harry shuddered. He did not hate any of those men out there who were
coming toward them so boldly; no, there was not in all those brigades,
nor in all the Union army, nor in all the North a single person whom he
wished to hurt. Yet he knew that he would soon fight against them with
all the weapons and all the power he could gather.

"Eight hundred yards," said Dalton.

"Fire!" was the word that ran like an electric blaze along the
whole Southern front; and Jackson's fifty cannon, suddenly pushing
forward from the forest, poured a storm of steel upon the devoted
Pennsylvanians. Harry felt the earth rocking beneath him, and his ears
were stunned by the roaring and crashing of the cannon all about him.

The Union officers on the porches of the colonial mansion across the
river saw that terrible blaze leap from the Confederate line, and their
hearts sank within them like lead. Alarmed as they had been before,
they were in consternation now. Some had said that Jackson was not
there, that it was merely a detachment guarding the woods, but now they
knew their mistake.

Harry and Dalton stayed close to their general. Shells and shot from
the batteries below on the plain were crashing along the trees, but,
like those from the great guns on Stafford Heights, they passed mostly
over their heads. The two youths at that moment had little to do but
watch the battle. The Southern riflemen crept forward in the woods,
and now their bullets in sheets were crashing into the hostile ranks.
The Union division commander hurried up reinforcements, and the
Pennsylvanians, despite their frightful losses and shattered ranks,