[Original]
The fight in the forenoon had exhausted them, and they were unprepared for the work still to be done.
The battle was fierce; men were falling like hail, in all the agonies of death. Here a drummer boy was lying face downward, his stiff hand clutching the stick whose strokes would never wake the echoes again. There an officer, his uniform dyed with blood, lay prostrate on the ground, his horse half across his stiffening body, while at every turn the wounded were huddled together, in the positions in which they fell.
[Original]
Ralph's heart turned sick, as he saw the brave fellows who manned the batteries tumbling over each other, many of them shot through the heart, as the Confederates, tempted by their success, stole nearer to the guns.
Captain Griffin, who made the sad mistake of thinking the troops were his own men coming to his aid, permitted the nearer approach of the Confederates. He discovered his error when a volley of musketry took nearly every gunner and stretched Lieutenant Ramsay low in death, as the rebels rushed in and seized the guns.
