"Go, and tell Captain ---- to bring his battery here instantly!"
Sending more messages to the various divisions and batteries, only a single member of the staff remained. Once more scanning the woods with his eager eye, Hooker directed the aid:
"Go, and tell Captain ---- to bring that battery here without one second's delay. Why, my God, how he can pour it into their infantry!"
By this time, several of the body-guard had fallen from their saddles. Our horses plunged wildly. A shell plowed the ground under my rearing steed, and another exploded near Mr. Smalley, throwing great clouds of dust over both of us. Hooker leaped his white horse over a low fence into an adjacent orchard, whither we gladly followed. Though we did not move more than thirty yards, it took us comparatively out of range.
The Rebels Waver and Break.
The desired battery, stimulated by three successive messages, came up with smoking horses, at a full run, was unlimbered in the twinkling of an eye, and began to pour shots into the enemy, who were also suffering severely from our infantry discharges. It was not many seconds before they began to waver. Through the rifting smoke, we could see their line sway to and fro; then it broke like a thaw in a great river. Hooker rose up in his saddle, and, in a voice of suppressed thunder, exclaimed:
"There they go, G-d d--n them! Forward!"
Our whole line moved on. It was now nearly dark. Having shared the experience of "Fighting Joe Hooker" quite long enough, I turned toward the rear. Fresh troops were pressing forward, and stragglers were ranged in long lines behind rocks and trees.
Riding slowly along a grassy slope, as I supposed quite out of range, my meditations were disturbed by a cannon-ball, whose rush of air fanned my face, and made my horse shrink and rear almost upright. The next moment came another behind me, and by the great blaze of a fire of rails, which the soldiers had built, I saw it ricochet down the slope, like a foot-ball, and pass right through a column of our troops in blue, who were marching steadily forward. The gap which it made was immediately closed up.
Men with litters were groping through the darkness, bearing the wounded back to the ambulances.