Move your battery out to the right," Hunt shouted. The captain in charge of a battery of Illinois gunners saluted, shouted for his men to hook up their pieces and pull them out of the lunettes. He was changing front now with nearly all his guns, shifting from fire across the river to the pounding of the rebel flanking attack. There was little they could actually shoot at, the smoke was too thick, but the sound of battle to their right was swelling, punctuated now by more rebel yells. Anyone with experience knew a breakthrough was coming, and would roll straight toward them.
He looked back toward town. The reserve limbers, loaded with canister, had yet to appear. He needed that canister, and he sent the last of his couriers off to urge the limbers on.
'They're starting to break," someone shouted, pointing. On the road below, hundreds of men were emerging out of the smoke, Union troops, white and black mixed together, some running, some giving ground defiantly, clustered around a flag, falling back thirty or forty yards, turning to fire, then falling back again.
In ten minutes the rebs would be on him.
"Texas!"
The men of the Texas Brigade were up on their feet, pushing through Beauregard's men and starting forward. It was not a mad, impetuous charge. They came on low, crouching, standing up to fire, going down low to reload, weaving forward a few dozen feet, standing to fire again. The range was so close that now, at last, Lee Robinson could see his enemies, maybe thirty yards off, shadowy dark figures, down low, firing back. No solid volley line, they were shredded, but the survivors were hanging on, refusing to budge.
It was going to take the bayonet.