9.I5A.M.

Tell Robertson and McLaw they must come up now and we have them!" Beauregard snouted. A staff officer saluted, turned, and galloped back down the road.

Across his mile-wide front the battle had opened, volleys rattling, the air above and around him alive with bullets. He rode behind his regiments, the reserve brigades, one to each division advancing, already going in to strengthen the assault. Directly to the front of his First Division more than one man had gone into a near frenzy with the realization they were fighting colored troops.

He thought those would break with the first charge. The lead regiments had leapt forward without even firing, figuring to panic and bowl them over with the sight of the bayonet.

Those regiments had been shredded, and now a vicious firefight raged across the cornfield.

The first of his guns, a battery of Napoleons, were already in play but the shooting was tight for them. There was no good prominence to deploy on that would enable the gunners to fire safely over the heads of the infantry in front. The range was short at six hundred yards, and missing in elevation by even a few feet would send case shot plowing into the backs of comrades, so most of the shells were going high, bursting far behind the enemy line.

He sent another courier over to the gunners, telling them to shift target, to bombard the crossing where Yankee infantry were drawn up defending the far side of the ford from increasing pressure by Jubal Early's battered survivors.

He looked back down the road-dust. It had to be Robertson; it had to be.

Headquarters, Army of Northern Virginia 9:20 A.M.

He had not gone in as one solid blow, Lee thought, high enough above the smoke that he could clearly see the spreading battle on the other side of the creek.

Two divisions were in, trading blow for blow with what looked to be two divisions of Yankees. One division was far stronger than the other, and close examination had revealed them to be the colored troops. Most likely fresh from training fields, numbers not yet depleted, perhaps five thousand or more.

They had just sustained a mad frontal charge and held, his own men forced to give back, and now it was a stand-up firefight. Beauregard was right to try that tactic; if the blacks had broken in panic, that panic could easily have infected the rest of the army and sent them running, the way the German Eleventh Corps had at Chancellorsville.

The Yankees had taken a bad position to try to hold. Their left flank, on the far side of the creek, was at a right, angle to the ford. They should have conceded that point, pulled back several hundred yards to the north, but if they had done so, the Yankees still on the east side of the creek would have been completely surrounded.

There was a great opportunity now.

"Tell General Alexander to return his guns on our left back to their position of yesterday, to open a general bombardment on the Yankees below them. Also, tell Jubal he must push forward and retake that ford. That could begin to roll up their entire right flank."

An orderly saluted and galloped off.

Hood and Longstreet were by his side, both silent, glasses raised, watching the spreading fight.

"I should go down, help Jubal," Hood said. "I can bring up what's left of Rodes's old division as well.

Lee nodded in agreement, not saying a word.

"We're losing a lot of men down there," Pete said.

"So are they," Lee replied.

Headquarters, Army of the Susquehanna 9:40 A.M.

He could sense the growing anxiety of his staff. Men were moving about hurriedly, couriers setting off a bit too quickly, spurring their mounts hard.

There was so much smoke now it was hard to see, the air absolutely still, filled with dampness, the kind of conditions that could cause battle smoke to become a thick, impenetrable fog.

Banks came in. Dapper-looking, fifteen years older than Grant, he saluted in a perfunctory manner. "You sent for me, sir?"

"I want you to prepare to shift your reserve division back into the center of Frederick, then move south of town to cover the Catoctin Road."

"Is this the beginning of a pullout?" Banks asked quietly.

"No, it is not!" Grant snapped, loud enough for everyone to hear. "We stand here, we fight here, we win here. We are not pulling out."

"Sir, may I be so bold," Banks said with almost a lecturing tone. "You have been flanked, sir, and that is Lee down there. He is already preparing to come in from across the river. I suggest we consider evacuation of this plain and pull back to the high ground."

"You are being bold and completely out of line, General Banks," Grant said icily. "I have given you an order. Now see that it is carried out. Keep your division in town. When I pass the order, they are to come out on to the plains south of town."

He paused, stepping closer to Banks.

'Those are my orders."

"Yes, sir," Banks said calmly. He saluted crisply, and without a look back, rode off.

The roar of battle continued to intensify. Hunt's batteries were fully engaged, half the pieces sending shot into Beauregard's guns, the other pieces pounding the ground on the other side of the ford, where increasing numbers of rebel infantry were pushing down toward the river.

"More rebs going in!" someone exclaimed.

Grant shifted his field glasses back to Beauregard's advance, but could see nothing, the smoke too thick. He lowered the glasses. It was hard to discern, but watching closely he could see a dark tide moving through the smoke, coming up to merge with the enemy's forward battle line:

"Bet that's the Texans," Ely Parker said softly.

First Texas 9:50 AM.

Men panting, bent double, the battle line of Hood's old Texas brigade surged forward. Behind them the rest of Robertson's Division was filing in behind Beauregard's right-flank division, having broken column from the road to swing into line.

They crossed over a railroad track, gray-clad bodies scattered along the right-of-way. A shell screamed in, bursting directly on the track, showering them with case shot and fragments of ballast, five men going down.

"Keep moving, boys!" Lee Robinson shouted. "Keep moving."

Men were cursing, a few falling out from exhaustion. Directly ahead he could see Monocacy Creek, and at the sight of it some men cried out that there was water.

At the head of the column was a staffer from Robertson's headquarters, mounted on a bloody horse, sword drawn, now pointing to their left.

'Turn and form line!" he screamed.

The men around Robinson cursed, one of the corporals snatching canteens from half a dozen of his comrades and ignoring the orders, dashing the last few yards down to the creek.

Lee let him go. Those who were still with this column were the solid hard core of the old First. No skulkers. They had been driven out long ago. Every man was a veteran, a veteran of the cornfield at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Union Mills, the debacle before Washington, the slaughter last week at Gunpowder River. An officer shouted for the corporal to come back, but the man ignored him, jumping into the creek, forcing the canteens down, then but a few seconds later coming back up the slope, muddy, water dripping, passing the canteens back to his comrades, who drank greedily and then passed the precious liquid to friends forming line around them.

"Forward at the double!"

The First Texas set off, a ragged line, but then again they were never noted for parade-ground performance, but when it came to a fight, they were the ones called upon.

"I heard it's niggers up there," someone cried.

"They can kill the same as a white man," someone shouted back, and from more than one there were dark oaths about what would happen to prisoners.