Glowing, grateful, big with the fate of the battle, Jack had Barney, Nick, and another, whom he charged with the duty of historian, detailed for this duty of glory. The group set off with a fervent Godspeed from the company sheltered among the thick pines and oaks.
"Now, boys," Jack said, every inch the captain, "we must spread out like skirmishers. Our chief danger will be from the left, as no one will be likely to be in the water but our own men, and we must look as sharply for them as for the enemy. I will take the center; you, Barney, the left, next to me; and you, Nick, four paces farther to the left." Jack looked at his watch. It was just 9.30, Sunday morning, July 21, 1861. The crash of musketry ahead now became one unbroken roar, with a crescendo of artillery that fairly shook the ground the messengers were darting over, for all were on a dead run. The bushes grew thick on the hillside and their branches were stubborn as crab thorns. Hell, as Barney afterward remarked, would have been cool in comparison to the heat as the adventurers tugged and wrestled forward. Now guns were roaring on every side save the river. Behind, before, to the left, the thunders played upon the parched land. At the end of a half-hour the bullets and shells passed over the group as Jack and his squad pushed along the hilly way. Twice, commands, and even the clicking, of what Jack knew must be rebel guns sounded not twenty paces away, but, thanks to the thick bushes, the scouts passed unseen, and, thanks to the noise of battle, unheard. But now the danger is from friends, not enemies. Balls come hurtling through the trees across the stream, and in a low voice Jack bids Barney summon Nick. Then all slip down to the water's edge, and make their way painfully through the marshy swamps, the cane-like rushes that fill the narrow valley. The run has been a fearful strain upon Nick, and at length he falls, gasping, in a clump of cat-tails.
"What is it, old fellow?" Jack cries in alarm.
"O Jack! I can't go a step farther. You go on and leave me. I shall follow when I get breath."
He was white and gasping. Barney filled his canteen from the running water, and, wetting his handkerchief, laid it on Nick's parboiled head and temples.
"Best a few minutes," Jack said, soothingly. "I will reconnoitre a bit." Stripping off his accoutrements, he clasped a tall sycamore growing at the crest of the ravine, and when far up brought his glass to bear. A third of a mile to the left and southward, he could see a regiment with a flag bearing a single star, surrounding a small stone farm-house on the brow of a gentle hill. They were firing to the west and toward the north, where the black clouds obscured his view. But the red gleam in the smoke told of at least a dozen guns, and he knew that the main battle was there, though the fury of it reached far to the east, near the stone bridge which he had quit an hour before. Then through the veil of smoke long, deep masses of blue emerge and make for the rebel front on the brow of the hill, fairly at Jack's feet; the enemy redoubles the fire; two guns at their left pour canister into the advancing wall of blue. It never wavers, but, as a group falls to the earth, the rest close together and the mass whirls on.
Jack feels like flying. Oh, the grandeur of it, the fearlessness, the intoxication! He almost falls from the tree in his excitement. But he takes a last sweep of the belching hill. Hark! Loud cheers in the trees back of the rebels, far to the southeast, perhaps a mile and a half; then the flaunting Palmetto flag flying forward in the center of deep masses of gray. Which will reach the hill first? He can not quit the deadly sight. Ah! the blue lines are pressing on now; the cannon-shots pass over their heads into the devoted line of gray, desperately thinned, but clinging to the key of the battle-field. But, great God! Perhaps his delay is aiding the enemy. He sees the route now clear—straight to the west—and no rebels near enough to intervene. He descends so fast that his hands and legs are blistered, but he is down.
"Look sharp, boys; you must follow me as best you can. I know the route—there is a forest path directly to our lines, and we shall be there in twenty minutes—I shall, at least." He doesn't stop to see whether he is followed or not, but dashes on, and the rest after him. He is far out of sight in an instant. It is only by the crackling of the branches that the others keep his course. The way is between steep, precipitous hills, which explains how they could be so near the battle and yet not in it, nor harmed by the missiles flying sometimes very near them. At a deep branch of the stream the three rearmost came in sight of Jack, up to his armpits in water and pushing for the shore.
While they are hailing him exultantly he sinks out of sight; an awful anguish almost stops the others, but Barney, flinging his musket and impediments off as he runs, leaps far into the stream, and when the rest reach the spot he has Jack by the hair, dragging him to the bank. He is fairly worn out by the stress, and the others loosen his coat, stretch him on the brown sward and rub his hands, his body. It is ten minutes, it seemed an hour, before he is able to get up, and the rest insist on carrying his accoutrements. Then the wild race is begun again, every instant bringing them nearer the pandemonium of battle. Suddenly the sharp commands of officers are heard in front and to the left. Is it the enemy, or is it friends? The group halts in an agony of doubt. How can they find out? Barney takes out his handkerchief and puts it on his gun, which he was careful to go back and recover when Jack was on the bank. A ray of bright red suddenly flits above the thick tops of the scrub-oaks.
Yes, God be praised, there is the flag of stars, and there are blue uniforms! With a wild hurrah, drowned in the musketry to the left, they rush forward, are halted by a picket guard, exhibit Sherman's order, and are directed to the commanding-officer. That personage has no knowledge of General Hunter's whereabouts, but Colonel Andrew Porter is just beyond, commanding the brigade. To him Jack makes known Sherman's message, and is directed farther to the southwest, the Union right now facing nearly to the east in the execution of McDowell's admirable flank manoeuvre.