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, and securing the rear of Thomas.
Then the Winchester men and others about them went wild with joy.

They leaped, they danced, they sang, until they were commanded to make ready for a new attack.

Rosecrans in Chattanooga, with the most of his army there also in wild confusion, had sent word to Thomas to retire, to which Thomas had replied tersely: "It will ruin the army to withdraw it now; this position must be held till night." And he made good his resolve.