His determination was superb, and the coolness of his gunners and cannoneers was worthy of the unbounded admiration which we, their enemies, felt for them. Their firing increased as their difficulties multiplied, but it showed no sign of becoming wild or hurried. Every shot went straight to the object against which it was directed; every fuse was accurately timed, and every shell burst where it was intended to burst. I remember that in the very heat of the contest there came into my mind Bulwer’s superb description of Warwick’s last struggle, in which he says that around the king-maker’s person there “centred a little WAR,” and I applied the phrase to the heroic fellow who was so superbly fighting against hopeless odds immediately in front of me.
Several of his guns were dismounted and his dead horses were strewn in the rear. The loss among his men was appalling, but he fought on as coolly as before, and with our glasses we could see him calmly sitting on his large gray horse directing his gunners and patiently awaiting the coming of the infantry support, without which he could not withdraw his guns. It came at last, and the batteries retired to the new line.
When the battalion was gone and the brief action over, the wreck that was left behind bore sufficient witness of the fearfulness of the fire so coolly endured. The large gray horse lay dead upon the ground; but we preferred to believe that his brave rider was still alive to receive the promotion which he had so well won.
A PLANTATION HEROINE
IT was nearing the end.
Every resource of the Southern states had been taxed to the point of exhaustion.
The people had given up everything they had for “the cause.”
Under the law of a “tax in kind,” they had surrendered all they could spare of food products of every character. Under an untamable impulse of patriotism they had surrendered much more than they could spare in order to feed the army.
It was at such a time that I went to my home county on a little military business. I stopped for dinner at a house, the lavish hospitality of which had been a byword in the old days.
I found before me at dinner the remnants of a cold boiled ham, some boiled mustard greens, which we Virginians called “salad,” a pitcher of butter-milk, some corn-pones and—nothing else.