"Same to you, old man! But I'm going to be clean for this one, anyhow."
The regiment marched toward Malvern Hill at the first streak of dawn. It was slow work. Always the artillery ahead were sticking in the mud and the halts were interminable.
The new company grew more and more nervous:
"What's up ahead?"
They asked it at every halt the first three hours. And then their disgust became more pronounced.
"What in 'ell's the matter?" Ned groaned.
"Don't worry, Sonny," an old corporal called, "you'll get there in time to see more than you want."
The regiment reached the battle lines at one o'clock. The morning hours had been spent in driving in the skirmishers and feeling the enemy's positions. Lee had given orders for a general charge on a signal yell from Armistead's brigade. He was now waiting the arrival of all his available forces before attacking.
Late in the afternoon General D. H. Hill heard a shout followed by a roar of musketry and immediately ordered his division to charge. No other General seemed to have heard it and the charge was made without support. It was magnificent, but it was not war, it was sheer butchery. No army could have stood before the galling fire of those massed batteries.
Ned's regiment had deployed in a wood on the edge of a wide field at the foot of the hill. Their movement caught the eye of a battery on the heights which opened with six guns squarely on their heads.