Suddenly the bugles on Pleasanton's right sounded a charge. The men drew their sabers. The sharp, shrill music set their blood in motion. It thrilled them.
"Forward!"
Away they dashed. The three hundred men filing from the road into the field on the right, deploying into line, wheeling, then, with a hurrah, with a trampling of hoofs which shook the earth, increasing from a trot to a gallop, they fell upon Stuart's left. The Rebels fired their carbines.
The Rebel artillerymen under the locust-trees wheeled their guns towards the northwest, but before they could fire, the three hundred were upon them. Instead of firing, the cannoneers leaped upon their horses, and made all haste to escape. They succeeded in carrying off their guns, but left twenty-two prisoners in the hands of Pleasanton.
The affair did not last more than twenty minutes, but it was the most brilliant of all the operations of the cavalry connected with the army of the Potomac up to that date,—the 6th of November, 1862.
The orders which General McClellan had issued to the army forbade the soldiers to forage. If supplies were wanted, the quartermasters and commissaries would supply them. Notwithstanding the order, however, the soldiers managed to have roast chickens and turkeys, and delicious mutton-chops, legs of veal, and pork-steaks. At night, there was stewing, frying, and roasting by the bivouac fires.
One night, I found lodgings with a farmer. He had a large farm, a great barn, and a well-filled granary. Fat turkeys roosted in the trees around his stables, and a flock of sheep cropped the clover of his fields.
He was a secessionist. "I was for the Union till the President called for seventy-five thousand men to put down the rebellion, as he calls it," said he.
"Why did you become a secessionist then?"
"Because that was interfering with State rights. The government has no right to coerce a State. So, when Virginia seceded, I went with her."