Then came a pause, a period of intense waiting, short, but seemingly long, even to the veteran generals, after which the gallant builders, who truly deserved the name of the bravest of the brave, ventured again upon the bridge in the face of those terrible Mississippi rifles. A blast of death again blew upon them. Bullets in hundreds struck upon bodies or rattled on timbers. The workmen could not live in the face of such a fire, and those who had not been slain retreated again to their own side of the stream. A third time the heroic bridge builders returned to their work, and a third time they were driven back by the deadly Mississippi hail. Harry felt pity for them.
“I never saw anything braver,” he said to Dalton.
“Nor did I, Harry, nor anything more useless. The bridge builders never had a chance before the rifles. But now their supports, which should have been there all the time, are coming up.”
Heavy columns of Union riflemen moved forward to the edge of the river and replied to the Mississippians. But the Southerners, in the shelter of the cellars and pits, held their ground. But few of them were hit and they kept up that deadly hail which swept the uncompleted bridge clear of every workman who attempted to go upon it.
The rapid fire of the rifles crashed up and down both sides of the river, two sheets of flame seeming to reach out as if they would meet each other. The wind that had driven away the fog also carried off the smoke, and the river still gleamed like steel between. Then, as the rifle fire died again, there was another silence for a while.
“It will take more than rifles,” said Harry, “to drive out those intrenched Mississippians.”
“So it will, Harry,” said Dalton, who was watching through glasses, “and here it comes. Their great batteries are about to open.”
The next instant the whole earth seemed to be shaken by the roar of heavy cannon. The opposing hills and ridges fairly poured forth flame, and shells and solid shot crashed upon the whole devoted town. Nor did this tremendous fire from a hundred and fifty great guns cease for an instant. The roar and crash were appalling. Harry saw houses crumbling in Fredericksburg, with flames leaping up from others.
The artillery of Longstreet immediately facing the Union batteries was too light and weak to reply, and the gunners remained quiet in their trenches while the storm rained its showers of steel upon the town. Yet the Mississippians in the rifle pits held fast, their earthen shelters protecting them. While the bombardment was at its very height workmen ran out on the bridge for the fourth time to complete it, and while the shells and solid shot were whistling over their heads, the rifles of the Mississippians once more swept it clean. Harry groaned. He could not help it at the sight of men so brave who were cut down like grass by the scythe. Then his attention turned away from the bridge to the mighty cannonade which seemed to be growing in volume. The wind took much of the smoke across the river and it floated in a great cloud over Fredericksburg, through which shot the flames of the burning buildings.
But the main army of the South, stretched along a front of six miles, remained silent. Jackson on the right scarcely moved, but all the while he attentively watched through his glasses the great cannonade. Nearly all the soldiers were lying down, and to most of them the earth seemed to heave with the shock of all those blazing cannon.
Harry and Dalton walked once to the point where the Invincibles lay. That is, all but Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire were lying down. They stood rigidly erect, their eyes on the great cannonade, and as Harry approached they were exchanging brief comments with each other.
“What harm does that cannonade do, Hector?” asked Colonel Talbot.
“Much to the town, little to us.”
“What a pity we don’t have an artillery equal to theirs.”
“A great pity, Leonidas.”
“They will presently move forward in much greater force to finish the bridge.”