Each trooper looked with careful eye to girth and curb and rein.
We snatched a hasty breakfast—we were old campaigners then:
That morn, of all our splendid corps, we’d scarce one hundred men;
But they were soldiers, tried and true, who’d rather die[477] than yield;
The rest were scattered far and wide[478] o’er many a hard-fought field.
Our trumpet now rang sharply out, and at a swinging-pace
We left the bivouac behind;[479] and soon the eye could trace[480]
The columns moving o’er the plain. Oh! ’twas a stirring sight
To see two mighty armies there preparing for the fight:
To watch the heavy masses, as, with practised, steady wheel,