"Halt! Load at will! Load!"
In the moonlight that falls shimmering across the road, as I look back over the column, I see the bright steel flashing, while the jingle of the ramrods makes music that stirs the blood to a quicker pulse. A well-known voice calls me down the line, and Andy whispers a few hurried words into my ear, while he grasps my hand hard. But we are off at a quick step. A sharp turn to the left, and—hark! The firing has ceased, and they are "charging" down there! That peculiar, and afterward well-known, "Yi! Yi! Yi!" indicates a struggle for which we are making straight and fast.
At this moment comes the order: "Colonel, you will countermarch your men, and take position down this road on the right. Follow me!" The staff-officer leads us half a mile to the right, where, sinking down utterly exhausted, we are soon sound asleep.
Of the next day or two I have but an indistinct recollection. What with the fatigue and excitement, the hunger and thirst, of the last few days, a high fever set in for me. I became half-delirious, and lay under a great oak-tree, too weak to walk, my head nearly splitting with the noise of a battery of steel cannon in position fifty yards to the left of me. That battery's beautiful but terrible drill I could plainly see. My own corps was put on reserve: the men built strong breastworks, but took no part in the battle, excepting some little skirmishing. Our day was yet to come.
One evening,—it was the last evening we spent in the woods at Chancellorsville,—a sergeant of my company came back to where we were, with orders for me to hunt up and bring an ambulance for one of the lieutenants who was sick.
"You see, Harry, there are rumors that we are going to retreat to-night, for the heavy rains have so swollen the Rappahannock that our pontoons are in danger of being carried away, and it appears that, for some reason or other, we've got to get out of this at once under cover of night, and lieutenant can't stand the march. So you will go for an ambulance. You'll find the ambulance-park about two miles from here. You'll take through the woods in that direction,"—pointing with his finger,—"until you come to a path; follow the path till you come to a road; follow the road, taking to the right and straight ahead, till you come to the ambulances."
Although it was raining hard at the time, and had been raining for several days, and though I myself was probably as sick as the lieutenant, and felt positive that the troops would have started in retreat before I could get back, yet it was my duty to obey, and off I went.
I had no difficulty in finding the path; and I reached the road all right. Fording a stream, the corduroy bridge of which was all afloat, and walking rapidly for a half-hour, I found the ambulances all drawn up ready to retreat.
"We have orders to pull out from here at once, and can send an ambulance for no man. Your lieutenant must take his chance."
It was getting dark fast, as I started back with this message. I was soaked to the skin, and the rain was pouring down in torrents. To make bad worse, in the darkness I turned off from the road at the wrong point, missed the path, and quite lost my way! What was to be done? If I should spend much time where I was, I was certain to be left behind, for I felt sure that the troops were moving off; and yet I feared to make for any of the fires I saw through the woods, for I knew the lines of the two armies were near each other, and I might, as like as not, walk over into the lines of the enemy.