CHAPTER XIX
THE CLASH
THANKS to Dad’s foresight, or to the Confederate leader’s confidence in his flank movement’s power to detain his proposed prey, the hilltop was gained by the Yankee vanguard while the Confederates were still slowly toiling up its farther and far-steeper slope.
Before the advancing Confederates could clearly realize what was happening the Federal vanguard was bearing down upon them.
This ruse of Dad’s (gleaned by him from the tale of a battle of Frederick the Great) took the enemy wholly and dumfoundedly by surprise.
By every modern tradition of warfare the force on the hilltop, at sight of the approaching enemy, should have halted and thrown up some sort of defenses, or at the least should have awaited the foe’s approach.
Instead the leading Yankee regiments, moving in semi-open formation, started down the hill at the double, straight at the climbing foes.
And other regiments and yet others appearing over the summit joined in the charge. The crest and the upper slope of the hill were alive with running men.
And five yards in advance of the foremost line leaped and ran and yelled and drummed a deliriously excited small boy.
When a man, toiling laboriously up a steep hill, collides with a man running down the same hill, which is the more apt to be bowled over by the impact?
The runner is reënforced by his own great impetus, the climber handicapped by his own fatigue and the sloping of the ground behind.