The storm increased until it reached the violence of
a hurricane. Through the entire night the lightning flashed and the
thunder pealed without ceasing. At times the heavens were livid with
blinding, dazzling light. Tents were a mockery. The earth was
transformed into a vast morass.
The storm had its compensations for the Northern army though divided.
Its frightful severity had so demoralized the Confederates that it was
nearly noon before General A. P. Hill moved to the attack.
The entrenched army was ready. The Union pickets lay in the edge of the
woods and every soldier in the pits had been under cover for hours
awaiting the onset.
With a shout the men in grey leaped from their shelter, pouring their
volleys from close charging columns. The rifle balls whistled through
the woods, clipping boughs, barking the trees, and hurling the Federal
pickets back on their support. In front of the abatis had been planted a
battery of four guns. The grey men had fixed their eyes on them. General
Naglee saw their purpose and threw his four thousand men into the open
field to meet them. Straight into each other's faces their muskets
flamed, paused, and flamed again. The Northern men fixed their bayonets,
charged, and drove the grey line slowly back into the woods. Here they
met a storm of hissing lead that mowed their ranks.
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