Henry, ducking low, raced between two pieces, crouching, trying to watch the impact all the shot aimed at three rebel batteries dug in along the crest. Five seconds later, the first bolts hit, thin geysers of earth kicking up, airbursts detonating. He caught a glimpse of at least one rebel piece upending from a direct hit

The valley echoed and reechoed from the concussive blast Dimly, to his right he heard the battery of sixty Napoleon smoothbores firing in unison, their round shot aimed to strike the forward line directly across the valley and only eight hundred yards away. Though he could not hear it he had to assume that the other sixty guns, positioned farther down the line, on Sickles's front had opened as well.

Looking over his shoulder, he saw that rammers had already sponged their tubes; loaders stood poised with powder bag and shot.

He stepped back, weaving through the organized dance of gunners at work. A shot screamed overhead, clearing the crest a second, later detonating beyond the slope, high enough that the shrapnel raining down on the vast columns would be relatively harmless.

Gun sergeants were hooking lanyards into friction primers set into the breeches, stepping back, carefully bringing the lanyard taut, raising a left hand indicating their piece was ready, shouting for the rest of their crew to stand clear.

More bolts were beginning to come back across the valley, ripping the air overhead, casting up clods of muddy earth from the front of the parapet

When each unit of six guns was loaded, their commanders raised clenched fists in the air, then brought them down. It was impossible to command 120 guns to fire at once, except on the first shot, too cumbersome and wasteful of precious time. First one battery fired, and within seconds the rest fired as well, guns recoiling violently. A few batteries had managed to pave their gun positions with heavy boards torn off the sides of barns; most were working on the muddy ground, the recoil already tearing into the earth, the men responsible for rolling their pieces forward straining and slipping on the wet ground.

Loaders ran past Henry, bringing up the next charge of powder and bolt while rammers again sponged the bores clean. The thunder of the battery salvos came rolling back across the meadows, seeming to pitch the volume to a higher level. The clap of the rebel guns on the far slope washed over him as well.

There was a flash and then a staggering explosion to Henry's right a caisson going up, bodies tumbling through the air, horses tied to the traces shrieking in agony as splinters, burning powder, and parts of human bodies slammed into them. One poor beast most of its hindquarters gone, screamed pitifully until a gunner ran up with drawn revolver and systematically put a shot into the head of each of the dying animals.

Another well-placed shot came in, this a solid bolt striking the trunion of a three-inch Parrott gun, dismounting the tube, the piece collapsing onto a gunner who died without making a sound.

Splinters exploded as another round struck a wheel of a neighboring gun, parts of the fennel and spokes scything across the field, the fennel literally tearing a man in half at the middle.

He started to ride down the line, ignoring the scream of incoming shells, carefully examining each crew at work, chewing out a battery commander for not taking the time to try and aim. The smoke was beginning to build up into a billowing cloud that cloaked the entire ridge, the occasional puff of breeze driving it along the slope. At times it was so thick he could barely see twenty feet, the men working around him looking like fiends in some infernal nightmare as they ran back and forth, brilliant flashes of light marking the discharge of each gun.

It was getting hot, the heat radiating off the barrels, the choking sulfurous smoke, the damp air the gutted ruins of a caisson burning, shells bursting overhead.

He spared a quick glance back across the open fields on the reverse slope. The infantry, close to forty thousand men, were down, lying in the tall grass, trampled corn and wheat fields, their dark lines spread across dozens of acres. They were starting to take the brunt of it now. Typical of rebel gunners, they were shooting high, trying to hit the narrow silhouette of a target along a higher crest. Off by even a fraction of a degree and the shot winged by, ten, twenty feet overhead, only to plunge down into the fields a quarter, even a half mile away. The men, in general, were protected by the reverse slope, but enough shells were detonating, or coming down on a high-enough arc, to hit the lines.

It was all becoming silent to him; the continual crack of artillery was deafening him. He couldn't hear their screams, but he could see the stretcher bearers running back and forth, carrying their bloody burdens to the rear.

He looked back toward the roiling clouds of yellow-green smoke, so thick that it would eddy and swirl as shot shrieked back and forth through it I only hope they're getting hit far worse, he thought grimly. My God, this has to do it.

9:30 A;M.

Longstreet finally accepted the inevitable and went into the trench, his staff pushing in after him. There was no sense in getting killed in this, he realized. Two of his orderlies were already wounded, one with a leg blown off.

The infantry around him nodded in recognition, one of them grinning. 'Too hot out there for ya, General?"

Pete said nothing, just offered a grin. Leaning up against the parapet, he trained his field glasses on the area below. It was hard to see. Everything was cloaked in smoke every bit as thick as the morning mist

The noise was beyond anything he had ever experienced. His own batteries were pouring it back, unmindful of ammunition spent. The captured Union supplies at Westminster guaranteed that for the first time in the war, the Confederate artillery could fire more intensely and longer than its Union counterpart Alexander finally had a chance to fight an artillery duel without rationing out each round and counting each minute of the engagement against a dwindling supply of ammunition. The effect was amazing to Confederate soldiers used to absorbing more than they hit with the artillery arm. The opposite slope was barely visible in the gloom. The only way to mark the battery position was by the continual ripple of flashes racing along the crest of the slope.

A shot came screaming in, men ducking, a spray of mud and dirt washing into the trench, covering Pete. Spitting, he stood up, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe the lenses of his field glasses.

Another shot tore past and he heard anguished cries. From the corner of his eye he saw a body collapsing, the man decapitated, comrades crying out in fear and anger.

Looking beyond the dead man, he saw Porter emerging from the smoke, on foot crouched and running low. Venable stood up, shouting for Porter to come over. The artilleryman slid into the trench, breathing hard.

"How goes it?" Pete asked.

'Twelve guns with Cabell and Poague's battalions are wrecks, sir, guns dismounted, a couple of hundred horses dead; casualties with those batteries are high. Looks like they had every gun aimed at them first. Should I get them out?’

Pete shook his head.

"I want them to stay," his words cut short by an airburst exploding nearly straight overhead. "Sir?"

"I want them to stay."

Porter looked at him, as if ready to voice an objection.

"All this smoke, they can barely see. Tell the surviving gunners they must keep firing."

"It will be a slaughter," Porter objected.

"It will be a slaughter wherever their fire is directed. That's Hunt over there, Porter. He knows counterbattery. You pull out and he'll shift fire to the next target I want you to keep those men at it"