Dick did not know it then, but a regiment drawn from neighboring counties charged the Winchesters thrice and left their dead almost at his feet.

He had little time to notice or measure anything amid the awful din and the continued shock of battle in which thousands of men were falling.
The clouds of smoke enveloped them at times, and at other times floated away.

New clumps of pines, set on fire by the shells, burned brightly like torches, lighting the way to death.

Smoke, thick with the odors of burned gunpowder clogged eye, nose and throat.

Dick and the lads around him gasped for breath, but they fired so fast into the dense Southern masses that their rifle barrels grew hot to the touch.
The South was making her supreme effort.