"Give 'em hell, boys," roared Jerome, "they've shot the captain!"
The boys were deliberately at work behind their various shields. They watched for a puff of smoke and fired. Rarely was an enemy seen, but they knew they were there. The young recruits on the left of the company were just as firm as the old chaps, only a little more noisy.
"What's the matter Amos, are you hit?" asked Lieut. Forbes of Amos Avery.
"The blinkity-blam johnnies have hit my thumb," he replied, shaking his hand rapidly.
"Then go to the rear."
"Not by a mill-site!" yelled Amos, still trying to comfort his thumb. And he remained and soon was at work again. That was Amos.
About the time Amos had resumed firing, the air about the little grass-plot was fairly blue, with very positive cursing of rebels in the woods, or on the plain, high or low. Lieut. Forbes was seen spinning around on one foot ready to whip the entire Confederacy. A rebel had drawn bead on Jerome's leg and grazed his shin, giving him a painful contusion.
Then Co. G was without an officer. Lieut. Grant had been transferred to another company. In the midst of the fight he was returned to Co. G.
The boys were ordered to fall back for cartridges. The 56th N.Y. took their places. Johnny reb discovered a change in the line and drove the 56th. Col. Carmichael took his boys in on a charge and drove the rebels back farther than before. But the charge cost Co. G their last officer. Lieut. Grant fell, shot through the body.
Once more the little band settled down to their work. The same noise of battle still roared on the right. Not a foot of ground was gained, not an inch lost. Those eyes of old Lenox should have peeped into that tangled wood. They could have seen their boys as cool as if by the firesides, but with a dreadfully earnest look about them.