The Federal Commander brought up two reserve
lines to support the first but before they could be of any use,
Longstreet's artillery was planted to rake them with a murderous fire
and they fell back in confusion.
As the reserves retreated Jackson ordered his men to charge and at the
same moment Longstreet hurled his division against the Federal center,
and the whole Confederate army with piercing yell leaped forward and
swept the field as far as the eye could reach.
No sublimer pageant of blood and flame and smoke and shrouded Death ever
moved across the earth than that which Lee now witnessed from the
hilltop on which he stood. For five miles across the Manassas plains the
gray waves rolled, their polished bayonets gleaming in the blazing sun.
They swept through the open fields, now lost a moment in the woods, now
flashing again in the open. They paused and the artillery dashed to the
front, spread their guns in line and roared their call of death to the
struggling, fleeing, demoralized army. Another shout and the charging
hosts swept on again to a new point of vantage from which to fire.
Through clouds of smoke and dust the red tongues of flame from a hundred
big-mouthed guns flashed and faded and flashed again.
The charging men slipped on the wet grass where the dead lay thickest.
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