The steep slope held back the Union troops and from the edges everywhere the men in gray poured a storm of shrapnel and canister and bullets into the packed masses.
Colonel Winchester groaned aloud, and looked at his men who were eager to advance to the rescue, but it was evident to Dick that his orders held him, and they stood in silence gazing at the appalling scene in the crater.

A tunnel had been run directly under the Confederates, and then a huge mine had been exploded.

All that part was successful, but the Union army had made a deep pit, more formidable than the earthwork itself.
Never had men created a more terrible trap for themselves.

The name, the crater, was well deserved.

It was a seething pit of death filled with smoke, and from which came shouts and cries as the rim of it blazed with the fire of those who were pouring in such a stream of metal.
Inside the pit the men could only cower low in the hope that the hurricane of missiles would pass over their heads.
"Good God!" cried Dick.