three o’clock
For two hours that terrible cannonading was maintained . The men who served the guns looked like stokers of ships , for , such was the heat , many of them , casting away first one piece of clothing and then another , were half naked , and black sweat glistened in streams on their chests and backs . As sight-seers crowd in eagerly by one door of a building where there is an exhibition , and come reluctantly out by another and go their ways , so the reserves kept pressing to the front , and the wounded maintained an unceasing reluctant stream to the rear . A little before three o'clock Hannibal St. John had his right knee smashed by the exploding of a caisson , and fell behind one of the guns of his battery . He was so sure that he was to be killed on this day that it had never occurred to him that he might be trivially wounded and carried to the rear in safety . An expression of almost comical chagrin came over his face , for life was nothing to him , and somewhere far above the smoke a goodly welcome awaited him : that he knew . Men came with a stretcher to carry him off , but he cursed them roundly and struggled to his well knee .