"What's up?" asked an officer. "The Rebels are massing in front, and it looks as though they were going to attack."
"Gibbons's brigade is across the turnpike; he will hold them, I reckon," said another officer.
I rode up on the hill in rear of Poffenberger's. Captain Gibbons was in front of his battery, looking across the turnpike into the woods.
"It is a little risky for you to be on horseback. Do you see that fence over there?"
"Yes."
"Well, the Rebel skirmishers are there, and we are in easy range. If you want to get a sight of them, you had better dismount, tie your horse, and creep down under the shelter of this fence."
The cannon balls were thick upon the ground, and there were pools of blood where the artillery horses had fallen.
"This was a warm place an hour ago, and may be again; for I see that the Rebels are up to something over there."
I look as he directs, and see a column of troops moving through the woods. They are in sight but a moment. I walk along the line, past Gibbons's, Cooper's, Easton's, Durrell's, Muma's, and Gerrish's batteries, to Poffenberger's barn. Gerrish's battery is very near the building. The gunners are tired with their morning's work, and are sound asleep under the wheat-stacks, undisturbed by the roar a half-mile distant, where Sedgwick is at it, or by the shot and shells which scream past them.