“The devil is to pay!” he cried to Reynolds.
“How do we stand?”
“We can hold on until the arrival of the First Corps.”
Buford sprang on his horse, and the two generals, reckless of death, galloped among the men, encouraging the faint-hearted, reforming the lines, and crying to them to hold fast, that the whole Army of the Potomac was coming.
Harry felt the hardening of resistance. The smoke was so dense that he could not see for a while the fresh troops coming to the help of Buford, but he knew nevertheless that they were there. Then he heard a great shouting behind him, as Hill’s men, coming upon the field, rushed into action. But Jackson, the great Jackson whom he had followed through all his victories, the man who saw and understood everything, was not there!
The genius of battle was for the moment on the other side. Reynolds, so ably pushing the work that Buford had done, was seizing the best positions for his men. He was acting with rapidity and precision, and the troops under him felt that a great commander was showing them the way. His vigor secured the slopes and crest of Cemetery Hill, but the Southern masses nevertheless were pouring forward in full tide.
The combat had now lasted about two hours, and, a stray gust of wind lifting the smoke a little, Harry caught a glimpse of a vast blazing amphitheater of battle. He had regarded it at first as an affair of vanguards, but now he realized suddenly that this was the great battle they had been expecting. Within this valley and on these ridges and hills it would be fought, and even as the thought came to him the conflict seemed to redouble in fury and violence, as fresh brigades rushed into the thick of it.
Harry’s horse was killed by a shell as he rode toward a wood on the Cashtown road, which both sides were making a desperate effort to secure. Fortunately he was able to leap clear and escape unhurt. In a few moments Dalton was dismounted in almost the same manner, but the two on foot kept at the head of the column and rushed with the skirmishers into the bushes. There they knelt, and began to fire rapidly on the Union men who were advancing to drive them out.
Harry saw an officer in a general’s uniform leading the charge. The bullets of the skirmishers rained upon the advance. One struck this general in the head, when he was within twenty yards of the riflemen, and he fell stone dead. It was the gallant and humane Reynolds, falling in the hour of his greatest service. But his troops, wild with ardor and excitement, not noticing his death, still rushed upon the wood.
The charge came with such violence and in such numbers that the Southern skirmishers and infantry in the wood were overpowered. They were driven in a mass across Willoughby Run. A thousand, General Archer among them, were taken prisoners.
Harry and Dalton barely escaped, and in all the tumult and fury of the fighting they found themselves with another division of the Southern army which was resisting a charge made with the same energy and courage that marked the one led by Reynolds. But the charge was beaten back, and the Southerners, following, were repulsed in their turn.
The battle, which had been raging for three hours with the most extraordinary fury, sank a little. Harry and Dalton could make nothing of it. Everything seemed wild, confused, without precision or purpose, but the fighting had been hard and the losses great.
Heth now commanded on the field for the South and Doubleday for the North. Each general began to rectify his lines and try to see what had happened. The Confederate batteries opened, but did not do much damage, and while the lull continued, more men came for the North.
Harry and Dalton had found their way to Heth, who told them to stay with him until Lee came. Heth was making ready to charge a brigade of stalwart Pennsylvania lumbermen, who, however, managed to hold their position, although they were nearly cut to pieces. Hill now passed along the Southern line, and like the other Southern leaders, uncertain what to do in this battle brought on so strangely and suddenly, ceased to push the Union lines with infantry, but opened a tremendous fire from eighty guns. The whole valley echoed with the crash of the cannon, and the vast clouds of smoke began to gather again. The Union forces suffered heavy losses, but still held their ground.