“Jesus,” Starbuck said. If Truslow sensed defeat, then disaster must be close. He knew Truslow was right, but still he did not want to admit it. The Yankees had come within an ace of breaking the fragile line, and when that line was dead or captured they would charge across the plateau’s top to pierce the very center of Lee’s army. The rebels were still enduring the Northern fire, but Starbuck guessed that most, like him, were simply too scared to run away. A man trying to retreat across the plateau would make himself an easy target and it seemed safer to crouch low behind barriers of the dead and keep on fighting.

The Yankee gun in the cornfield coughed a barrel of canister that churned dead and living flesh before ricocheting on into the pasture behind. A rebel gun was handspiked round to fire at the Yankee cannon, but a group of blue skirmishers killed the rebel gun crew. A color bearer in the Yankee lines waved a flag and Starbuck saw the arms of his home state, Massachusetts. A foolhardy Northern officer galloped a horse behind his men, encouraging them. Such men made choice targets, but the rebels were too few and too desperate to do anything now but pour a blind fire straight into the gunsmoke in hope of keeping the overwhelming Yankee mass away. More Northern canister crashed from the gun in the cornfield and more rebels died. Truslow’s leg was soaked in blood. “You should see a doctor,” Starbuck said. He was shaking, not with fear, but with a desperate excitement. He had one cartridge left.

Truslow gave a short efficient opinion of all doctors, then fired before dropping down behind a corpse that offered some cover as he reloaded. The corpse twitched as a bullet struck home with the meaty sound of an ax blow. Starbuck had reloaded his revolver during the pause between attacks and now fired all its chambers at the nearest group of Yankees. Truslow was right, he thought. They should retreat, but a retreat would become a rout. Better, perhaps, to lie here and let the victorious Yankees roll right over the line. He rammed his last cartridge into his rifle and peered across a corpse to find a final useful target. “Sons of bitches,” he said vengefully.

Then, suddenly, there was a screaming sound, an exultant sound, a high-pitched wailing terror of a sound, and he looked to his left and saw a new rebel unit streaming across the pasture. Some of the newcomers were in gray, some in butternut, but most wore the remnants of the gaudy zouave uniforms with which they had begun the war. It was the Louisiana Tigers, a fearful regiment of scoundrels from New Orleans, and it charged right past the rebel line, with bayonets fixed and with their battle flag streaming in the smoke. A sudden salvo of shells burst among the regiment, but the ranks closed up and screamed relentlessly on.

“Forward!” Truslow shouted. “Come on, you bastards!”