the unequal contest is quickly noted by the Union commander.
"This will never do," he exclaims. "Who will volunteer to carry the crest of the mountain?"
"Let us go forward," cries Colonel Monroe, of the Twenty-second Kentucky, "we know every inch of the ground."
"Go in, then," says Garfield, "and give them 'Hail Columbia!'"
Crossing the stream a little lower down, they mount the ridge to the left, and in ten minutes are face to face with the rebel army.
"Don't shoot till you see the eyes of your enemy," shouts the colonel, and although the men have never been in battle before, they are as cool and calm as their commander.
Five hundred against five thousand! It was a fearful contest, equalled only by the famous charge of the "Light Brigade."
"Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them,
Volleyed and thundered!"
And Garfield, standing upon a rock scarred with bullets, watched and waited for Sheldon's reinforcements, until, fearing the little band would be forced to retreat, he turned to the company held back as reserves, threw his military cloak into a tree, and exclaimed,—
"Come on, boys! It is our turn now to give them 'Hail Columbia'!" And then, as the ballad tells the story,—