The Rebels are strong and exultant. They cheer and scream and swing their caps. They think that they have won a victory. They press on to regain the woods from which they were driven in the morning.
"Form behind the batteries," shouts Sumner, riding along the lines. The troops are not panic-stricken. They are cool and deliberate.
Tompkins, Kirby, Bartlett, and Owen are ready with their howitzers. "Give them canister!" is the order.
The batteries are posted along the ridge, in the cornfield. The limbers and caissons are a few rods down the slope. The horses nibble the corn, they prick up their ears a little when a shot screams past, but are so accustomed to the firing that they do not mind it much.
Gorman, Dana, and lastly Howard, who has stood like a protecting wall, gain the rear of the batteries, and the field is open for them.
The Rebels advance. The batteries open. The discharges are rapid. No troops can live under such a fire. In five minutes it is decided that they cannot force the Union troops from the cornfield, nor from the woods east of it. They retreat once more to the church and to the ravine by Muma's.
Sedgwick has been engaged a half hour, but his loss has been great.
The Fifteenth Massachusetts was in Gorman's brigade,—the regiment which fought so nobly at Poolesville.
Twenty-four officers and five hundred and eighty-two men marched towards the church, but in twenty minutes three hundred and forty-three were killed and wounded. Other regiments suffered as much.
Jackson's loss was as severe as Sedgwick's.