Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 02.djvu/301

Rh But one caution was given—to reserve their fire until they reached the brink of the ditch; but one exhortation—that they were counted on to do this work, and do it quickly.

Now the leading regiment of the Georgia brigade began to move out, when suddenly a brave Federal officer, seizing the colors, called on his men to charge. Descrying this hostile movement on the instant, Weisiger, a veteran of stern countenance which did not belie the personal intrepidity of the man, uttered to the Virginians the single word—

Then the Sharpshooters and the men of the Sixth on the right, running swiftly forward, for theirs was the greater distance to traverse, the whole line sprang along the crest, and there burst from more than eight hundred warlike voices that fierce yell which no man ever yet heard unmoved on field of battle. Storms of case-shot from the right mingled with the tempest of bullets which smote upon them from the front, yet was there no answering volley, for these were veterans, whose fiery enthusiasm had been wrought to a finer temper by the stern code of discipline, and even in the tumult the men did not forget their orders. Still pressing forward with steady fury, while the enemy, appalled by the inexorable advance, gave ground, they reached the ditch of the inner works—

and the Sixth and Sixteenth, with the Sharpshooters, clutching their empty guns and redoubling their fierce cries, leaped over the retrenched-cavalier, and all down the line the dreadful work of the bayonet began.

How long it lasted none may say with certainty, for in those