This was the hardest work of war, that silent agony which tried
men in helpless bondage to unyielding discipline. I glanced anxiously
along the front of my troop, but they required no word from me; with
tightly set lips, and pale, stern faces, they held their line steady as
granite, closing up silently the ragged gaps torn by plunging balls.
"Captain," said Colgate, riding to where I sat my horse, "you will see
that the paper I gave you reaches home safe if I fail to come out of
this?"
I reached over and gripped his hand hard.
"It will be the first thing I shall remember, Jack," I answered
earnestly. "But we may have it easy enough after all--it seems to be an
infantry affair."
He shook his head gravely.
"No," he said, pointing forward, "they will need us now."
As he spoke it seemed as though the sharp firing upon both sides
suddenly ceased by mutual consent. The terrible roar of small arms,
which had mingled with the continuous thunder of great guns, died away
into an intermittent rattling of musketry, and as the heavy smoke
slowly drifted upward in a great white cloud, we could plainly
distinguish the advancing Federal lines, three ranks deep, stretching
to left and right in one vast, impenetrable blue wall, sweeping toward
us upon a run. Where but a brief moment before the plain appeared
deserted, it was now fairly alive with soldiery, the sun gleaming on
fixed bayonets, and faces aglow with the ardor of surprise.
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