The firing in the cornfield reached a new intensity. Swynyard tapped Starbuck’s shoulder. “See what’s happening, Nate. I don’t want to be trapped here.”

Starbuck ran through the woods. Above him was the noise of bullets and case shot whipping through the leaves, provoking a constant shower of leaf scraps. The wood’s center was empty, except for the dead and dying, but as he neared the western edge the rebels became thick again. They were firing at a single regiment of Yankees, which appeared to have made a lone charge through the broken corn. The Yankees seemed confused and abandoned, for no other battalions had supported their charge, and now, surrounded by rebels, they had huddled into a mass that was inviting a grim punishment from the rebels. One of the blue-coated men waved a New York flag to encourage his comrades, then a case shot cracked into smoke just above the flag that fell instantly. The Yankees began to retreat, and the rebels, heartened by the small victory, pushed forward into the corn again. It seemed to Starbuck that every rebel in Maryland was being thrust into the fight in one last desperate attempt to hold the position. Men were running from the West Woods to thicken the line that trampled forward into the corn. Captain Peel was there with more survivors from Starbuck’s battalion and Starbuck ran to join them. The ground in the cornfield felt lumpy because of the fallen cobs and because so many blasts of canister and case shot had littered the earth. A skin of smoke hung at breast height above the corn, while everywhere there was puddled blood, broken men, flies, and shattered weapons.

The rebel line advanced clear through the cornfield, but was again stopped at its northern edge. The Northerners had their own battle line waiting and that line gave a terrible volley that cracked into the rebel counterattack. Cannons belched canister, battalions fired volleys, but the insanity of battle had gripped the Southerners and instead of retreating from the overwhelming fire, they stayed and fired back into the Yankees. Starbuck scrabbled among the last few cartridges in his pouch and listened to the terrible swish of canister raking through the fallen corn and to the thump of bullets striking home. Some men knelt to fight and others lay down to see beneath the thickening smoke band.

The fight seemed to last forever, though later, counting his cartridges, Starbuck knew it could only have been a couple of minutes. He was unaware of making any sound, but he was keening a high moaning noise that was the product of pure terror. On either side of him men fell, and at every second he expected to suffer the banging impact of a bullet, but he stayed where he was, loading and firing, and he tried to blot out the noise of the screams and the bullets and the guns by singing the high unchanging note. He was working slowly, his brain fuddled by the chaos, so that he had to think about each action. The spent powder had caked in the grooves of his rifle’s barrel, making it hard to force each bullet down. He had propped his ramrod against his belly to make it easier to retrieve after each shot, but it kept falling into the corn and every time he stooped to pick it up he wanted to lay down and stay down. He wanted to be anywhere in all the world except here in death’s kingdom. He loaded again and saw one of his men fold slowly over, gasping for breath. Another man dragged himself back through the corn, leaving a trail of blood from a shattered leg. A Yankee drum lay discarded in the corn, its skin punctured by bullets. Little flames flickered in the corn, where bullet wadding had started fires. A Georgian officer was on his knees, hands clasped at his groin as he heaved in small breaths and stared in desperate misery at the blood spilling down his thighs. The man looked up and caught Starbuck’s eye. “Shoot me,” he said, “for pity’s sake, man, shoot me.”