From the bare crest of Champion Hill they were sending shells which crashed in the ranks of the advancing foe.

Two or three of the Winchesters were hit, and a wounded horse, losing its rider, ran screaming through the wood.
The forest and thickets now grew so dense that the officers dismounted, giving their horses to an orderly, and led on foot.

The country before them was most difficult.

Besides the trees and brush it was seared with ravines.

A swarm of skirmishers in front whom they could not see now poured bullets among them, and the shells, curving over the heads of the ambushed sharpshooters, fell in the Union ranks.