Tom lifted his solemn eyes from the grass.
"Lord, Lord, look at them new warm clothes, an' my elbows a-freezin' in
this cold wind!"
"Ain't it a picture?"
"What a pity to spile it!"
A ripple of admiration ran along the crouching lines as fingers softly
felt for the triggers of their guns.
A quick order from John Vaughan's Colonel sent their battery of
artillery rattling and bounding into position. The cannoneers sprang to
their mounts. A handsome young fellow missed his foothold and fell
beneath the wheels. The big iron tire crushed his neck and the blood
from his mouth splashed into John's face. The men on the guns didn't
turn their heads to look back. Their eyes were searching the brown hills
before them.
The long roll beat from a thousand drums, the call of the buglers rang
over the valley--and then the strange, solemn silence that comes before
the shock--the moment when cowards collapse and the brave falter.
John Vaughan's soul rose in a fierce challenge to fate. If he died it
was well; if he lived it was the same. He had ceased to care.
At exactly eight-thirty, General Meade hurled his division, supported by
Doubleday and Gibbon, against Jackson's weakest point, the right of the
Confederate lines. Their aim was to seize an opposing hill. The curving
lines of grey were silent until the charging hosts were well advanced in
deadly range and then the brown hills flamed and roared in front and on
their flanks.
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