But the wall, supported by an earthwork, did not give, and Longstreet's riflemen lay behind it waiting.
At a signal the Union cannon ceased firing and the bugles blew the charge.

The Union brigades swarmed forward and then rushed up the slopes.

The volume of fire poured upon them was unequalled until Pickett led the matchless charge at Gettysburg.

Pickett himself was here among the defenders, having just been sent to help the men on Marye's Hill.
Up went the men through the winter twilight, lighted now by the blaze of so many cannon and rifles pouring down upon them a storm of lead and steel, through which no human beings could pass.

They came near to the stone wall, but as their lines were now melting away like snow before the sun, they were compelled to yield and retreat again down the slopes, which were strewed already with the bodies of so many of those who had gone up in the other attacks.
Every charge had broken in vain on the fronts of Jackson and Longstreet, and the Union losses were appalling.