Jackson had formed his plan. There came for a few moments a lull in the battle which had now lasted nine hours, and then gathering a powerful reserve he sent them charging through the wood with the bayonet. Dick saw the massive line of glittering steel coming on at the double quick and he felt his regiment giving back. The men could not help it. Physically exhausted and with ammunition running low they slowly yielded the wood. Many of the youths wept with rage, but although they had lost thousands in five desperate charges they were compelled to see all five fail.
Dick, aghast, gazed at Warner through the smoke.
“It’s true!” gasped Warner, “we didn’t break the trap, Dick. But maybe they’ll succeed off there to the left! Our own commander is there, and they say that Lee himself has come to the help of Jackson!”
They had been driven back at all points and their own battle was dying, but off to the left it thundered a while longer, and then as night suddenly rushed over the field it, too, sank, leaving the hostile forces on that wing also still face to face, but with the North pushed back.
The coming of night was as sudden to Dick as if it had been the abrupt dropping of a great dark blanket. In the fury of conflict he had not noticed the gathering shadows in the west. The dimness around him, if he had taken time to think about it, he would have ascribed to the vast columns of dust that eddied and surged about.
Again it was the dust that he felt and remembered. The surging back and forth of seven score thousand men, the tread of horses and the wheels of hundreds of cannon raised it in such quantities that it covered the forest and the armies with a vast whitish curtain. Even in the darkness it showed dim and ghastly like a funeral veil.
Out of that fatal forest came a dreadful moaning. Dick did not know whether it was the wind among the leaves or the dying. Once more the ghosts of the year before walked the fatal field, but the ghosts of this year would be a far greater company. They had not broken the trap and Dick knew that the battle was far from over.
It would be renewed in the morning with greater fierceness than ever, but he was grateful for the present darkness and rest. He and his comrades had thrown themselves upon the ground, and they felt as if they could never move again. Their bones did not ache. They merely felt dead within them.
Dick was roused after a long time. The camp cooks were bringing food and coffee. He saw a figure lying at his feet as still as death, and he shoved it with his foot.
“Get up, Frank,” he said. “You’re not dead.”
“No, I’m not, but I’m as good as dead. You just let me finish dying in peace.”
Dick shoved him again and Pennington sat up. When he saw the food and coffee he suddenly remembered to be hungry. Warner was already eating and drinking. Off to the left they still heard cannon and rifles, although the sound was sinking. Occasionally flashes from the mouths of the great guns illumined the darkness.
Dick did not know what time it was. He had no idea how long he had been lying upon the ground panting, the air surcharged with menace and suspense. The vast clouds of dust, impregnated with burned gunpowder still floated about, and it scorched his mouth and throat as he breathed it.
The boys, after eating and drinking lay down again. They still heard the firing of pickets, but it was no more than the buzzing of bees to them, and after a while they fell into the sleep of nervous and physical exhaustion. But while many of the soldiers slept all of the generals were awake.
It was a singular fact but in the night that divided the great battle of the Second Manassas into two days both sides were full of confidence. Jackson’s men, who had borne the brunt of the first day, rested upon their arms and awaited the dawn with implicit confidence in their leader. On the other flank Lee and Longstreet were massing their men for a fresh attack.