Finally the moment of truth. The Union forces fired the first volley of cannon fire and the Confederate troops then followed suit. After the Union guns would fire, an explosion would occur right in front of the Confederate lines. One of those blasts caused a fire to flash up in the dry grass and suddenly the lines between fiction and truth were blurred. You can see a small group of Confederate soldiers trying to put out the blaze with buckets of water on the right side of this sketch. They did not have enough water and the fire started to spread. When the fire spread to about 20 yards wide I started to think that the tree might catch fire, then the woods. At that point a truce must have been called because Union Cavalry charged across the battle field also carrying buckets of water. With the combined forces forming a bucket brigade, the fire was finally put out.
The battle then started to heat up again as Confederate forces started to form back in the woods and they marched onto the battle field with a rebel yell. It was a sizable force and rather intimidating. As I said before, there had to be 5 Rebels to each Union Soldier.