Noon
These were picked troops who met here , veterans almost all of them , and neither would yield . The superior weight and range of the Northern guns gave them an advantage in artillery , and it was used to the utmost . Dick did not see how men could live under such a horrible fire , but there were the gray lines replying , and wherever they yielded , yielding but little . Noon came and then one o'clock . They had been fighting since dawn , and a combat so impetuous and terrible could not be maintained forever , particularly when the awful demon of war was eating up men so fast . Many of the regiments on either side had lost more than half their number and would lose more . They were human beings , and even the unwounded began to collapse from mere physical exhaustion .