Noon
In the armies of the older and more warlike nations of Europe , where the reins of discipline are much more tightly drawn than in our own , such skulking is prevented by regularly-organized ambulance-parties and by the prompt shooting down of any officer or soldier , not wounded , who dares to leave the ranks without orders . Even in our own service , a Taylor is occasionally found , fighting such a desperate battle as that of the Bad Axe against the Indians , and posting a line of his most reliable troops in the rear , with orders to make short work of the skulkers . Such discipline as this -- an enemy in front and an equally dangerous body of friends behind , is generally found efficacious even for the weakest knees ; and but few hours of such experience are necessary to produce a marked-change in the steadiness of any corps under fire . Noon now approached , and the battle had raged for more than two hours , without any intermission except the occasional lulls when batteries were limbered up and dragged off at a gallop to new positions , and when regiments deployed in line or closed in column , making evolutions to the flanks or movements to the front . Attacks had been fiercely made on every portion of the Union lines by the maddened rebels -- maddened , as was afterwards discovered , by the gunpowdered whiskey in their canteens ; and they had been quite as fiercely repulsed by the loyal troops , who neither needed nor received any such stimulus . This defence had been materially assisted , and the Federal troops enabled to gain ground at every repulse of the rebels , by the arrival of several regiments of infantry and two of his best batteries , sent in haste by McClellan from his main position at Malvern Hill , so soon as the roar of artillery announced that the fight had fairly begun with the rear-guard . A little before meridian , the musket fire of the enemy slackened perceptibly , while their artillery , operating against the Union left , seemed to redouble its fury .