This was beyond anything he had ever imagined war to be. There was no place for the wounded; they lay where they fell. All were deafened by the slapping roar of the Napoleon whose crew had expended all their canister and case shot and was now reduced to firing solid shot, aiming low so that the ball would strike in front of the rebel infantry, kicking up a spray of ballast and splintered railroad tie, which hit with deadly impact.

If not for the barrier, all within the cut would have been swept away. The worst casualties were up on the slopes of the ravine, the men exposed to fire from the flanks even as they fought to keep back the rebels circling in from both sides. Men of several regiments were mingled together at the barricade, some of them whites from the next division who had brought up more ammunition and decided to stay.

"Granddaddy was at Oriskany;" one of them kept saying with a grin. "It was like this. Injuns just circling all around, whoopin' and hollerin'."

Several times the rebs surged to within yards of the cut, threatening to push the men on the lip back down. If that happened, it was over, but the men had held them back, the rebs going to ground.

"Raining, thank God," someone announced.

Washington looked up, felt a few soft splashes on his face, a light drizzle-cooling, a true relief.

12:35 P.M.

Grim, near to shaking with fear, Sergeant Hazner kept low, back in the same gully he had been in the day before when the train exploded. They had been ordered down from their dug-in position an hour ago, to try to force the ruined bridge or, at the very least, to enfilade the railroad cut just west of the depot. A few had made a valiant rush onto the ruined bridge, jostling across broken ties, then trying to catwalk across the stringers in the midsection. Not one had made it.

So they had settled down to a steady, raging fire, adding to the smoke and confusion. The artillery above them pounded the opposite position. The blockhouse, which had guarded the entry into the cut, had finally collapsed in on itself after repeated hits, but even in the ruins the Yankees hung on, firing back.

Men were dropping, but no ground was being gained, no advantage to be found, just a steady wearing down by both sides until finally exhaustion, lack of ammunition, or the fact that there was no one left to fight would decide it.

Headquarters, Army of the Susquehanna 12:40 P.M.

Grant stood at the edge of town, field glasses raised. The town was directly behind him. McPherson's boys were hard at work, piling up barricades across the streets at the south edge of town.

Looking up toward the pass, he saw only a few wagons coming down. He had ordered all wagons to stay on the far side of the mountain except those bearing small-arms ammunition or artillery rounds.

A few shells were winging over toward the road, fired from a rebel battery deployed out on the left of their line. It was very long-distance fire, but nevertheless an indicator of what would be coming.

Banks's support division was up, filing in with McPherson's men.

Every regiment was now engaged, or soon would be. He had no reserves left. Banks's men up by the National Road were now reporting an assault supposedly led by Longstreet and backed by a dozen or more batteries.

Lee was indeed pushing all out.

Down below he could see the first of Hunt's guns coming back, drivers lashing their exhausted horses, emerging out of the smoke. The artillery fire within the smoke was slackening.

More guns came out, bouncing across the fields, and then he spotted Hunt. He sent a staffer down to lead him in.

Hunt looked like he had come out of a blast furnace, uniform scorched, face bleeding from a blistered burn, an eye nearly swollen shut.

"Sir, beg to report, I had to pull the guns back. We were getting flanked on both sides and nearly out of ammunition. By God, we emptied everything we had into them."

"You did fine, Hunt, held them up an hour or more."

"What a slaughter, sir, never seen anything like it. Worse than Malvern Hill, Gettysburg even. But they just kept coming. No ammunition left. We've been firing continually since just after dawn. I'm sorry, just couldn't get ammunition up fast enough…"

He bent double, breathing hard, and Grant remembered this man was still recovering from the typhoid.

"Get your guns to the far side of town. Post them up to guard the road to the pass."

"Yes, sir."

Grant walked back and forth along the street that led down to Buckeystown, men to either side of him dragging out tables, fence rails, a busted-up sofa with its owner, behind the two men, howling in protest, anything that could stop a bullet.

A light drizzle was coming down, pleasant at first, cooling, actually cutting the smoke down a bit.

He could see them. They had stopped for the moment, positioned just north of where his headquarters had been. He took out his field glasses and in the diminishing smoke could make out some details.

Three divisions. The one that had overrun Hunt, on the right, re-forming ranks. The second, to the left, the third moving behind the second to reinforce their left. It was taking time, valuable time. Their guns were moving up the road, going ahead of the infantry and swinging out into an open field. In a few minutes they would start shelling him.

He turned to look out across the rest of the field. The Hornets Nest was an inferno. Rebs had it completely surrounded but so far had not closed in for the kill. If anyone would hold it to the end it would be Sheridan. It was tying up a lot of the Confederates. Those men should be focusing here, he realized.

To his left gunfire raged along the northern flank. Rebs were across the river just below the National Road, trading long-distance volleys with Banks's men. The rebs had moved a lot of artillery support up on that flank and were heavily pounding the infantry guarding the bridge, perhaps in preparation for a frontal assault directly across.

Grant took it all in. Lee's attack had degenerated into three separate uncoordinated fights.

He could afford to lose the center completely, even if not one man came back from Ninth Corps; they had more than traded their numbers. Banks's fight was almost a different battle, without coordination on their own left. The guns trapped on the far side, if moved over in support of the main attack, might make a difference, for his own artillery had been worn down to exhaustion.

No, it was going to be here, right here, today, that it would be decided. The three Confederate divisions deploying out, forming up. They just might knock me back and secure the Catoctin Road.

He had already decided that if the road was threatened, he would not try to pull back over it. That would turn retreat to utter rout. He'd order the supply wagons on the far side to turn about and evacuate back to Hagerstown, while he extracted the army to the north, following the pike up toward Middleburg and Taneytown.

That would draw Lee after him, even while Sykes came up and Hancock, in his turn, threatened Lee's rear. At some point the combined weight of his three converging forces would outweigh Lee, no matter what happened here in the next few hours.

He felt calm, and he tried to convey that calmness even as the legions below him continued their intricate maneuvers, shifting an entire division to the left of the assault. The first of their guns opened up, solid shot winging in, smashing into buildings at the edge of the town, brick flying, windows shattering.

All he could do now was wait.

With Lee 1:00 P.M.

Patience, he thought. Patience, just a few more minutes to get it right. Lee remained silent, watching as Beauregard's Division that had been down on the right flank filed behind their comrades drawn up a couple of hundred yards ahead. The maneuver was relatively easy. They had already been formed into battle line, so it was simply a matter of having them face left and start marching. But over a mile of ground had to be covered, over hillocks, through half-trampled corn, pushing over ground devastated by the Yankee artillery that had smashed into McLaw. It was taking time, and the men were tired.