nine o'clock before
Ned saluted and hurried to the rear with his prisoner . The sun was slowly sinking in a sea of blood . The red faded to purple , the purple to grey , the grey into the shadows of night and still the guns were thundering from their heights . It was nine o'clock before they were silent and Lee 's torn and mangled army lay down among their dead and wounded to wait the dawn and renew the fight . They had been compelled to breast the most devastating fire to which an assaulting army had been subjected in the history of war . The trees of the woods had been literally torn and mangled as if two cyclones had met and ripped them to pieces . The men dropped in their tracks to snatch a few hours ' sleep .