of trees, and asked him what he wanted him to do. The general, calm and
taciturn as ever, pointed toward a long hill that flamed with the enemy's
guns, and said three words:

"Take that ridge!"

Steedman galloped back and the eight thousand charged at once. The
battle in front sank a little, as if the others wished to watch the new
combat. Dick had been dragged down from the stump by Warner, but the two
stood erect with Pennington, their eyes turned toward the ridge. Colonel
Winchester was near them, his attention fixed upon the same place.

The eight thousand firing their rifles and supported by artillery charged
at a great pace. The whole ridge blazed with fire, and the dead and
wounded went down in sheaves. But Dick could not see that they faltered.
Hoarse shouts came again from his dry and blackened lips:

"They will take it! they will take it! Look how they face the guns!"
he was crying.

"So they will!" said Warner. "See what a splendid charge! Now they're
hidden! What a column of smoke! It floats aside, and, look, our men are
still going on! Nothing can stop them! They must have lost thousands,
but they reach the slope, and as sure as there's a sun in the heavens
they're going up it!"

That tremendous cheer burst again from the beleaguered Union army.
Granger and Steedman, with their fresh troops, were rushing up the slopes
of the formidable ridge, and though three thousand of the eight thousand
fell, they took it, hurling back the advancing columns of the South,