For another fifty yards the Federal line—now irregular as a snake-fence—plunged forward; Dad’s regiment, the Blankth Ohio Infantry, forming its foremost point.
But flesh and blood could not stand the increasingly galling fire from the forest. Mortal nerves were not proof against the horrible strain of advancing to be struck down by the invisible, with no chance to strike a single return blow.
To have halted, if only once, and to have fired a chance volley, even ineffective, or its effect unseen, into the trees and underbrush whence poured that hail of death, would have been infinite relief.
But the officers had had their orders from the chattering corps commander. And those orders were to advance at the double and to continue to advance until the Federal line should come to grips with the foe.
Despite the frenzied exertions of their officers, the men began to lag. The trot slacked to a walk. The walk to an almost general and very wavering halt.
Dad, hoarse and exhausted, knew that the next move would be a cave-in of the demoralized line, then a retreat that would change to panic flight and a universal hurling away of rifles and knapsacks. Moreover, that soldiers who once allowed themselves to flee in that fashion would never again be the same men.
Their usefulness in war would be impaired by full fifty per cent., even as a horse that once has run away is no longer to be trusted.
The old man redoubled his furious efforts to rally his regiment and to force it onward to the charge. The whole crooked line had halted.
It was wavering like the tail of a kite. Presently it must snap.
Then—from nowhere in particular—from the skies, some vowed afterward—came a diversion.