NIGHT ATTACK ON FALMOUTH HEIGHTS.
"So steep was the ascent that not a few saddles slipped off the horses, precipitating their riders into a creek which flowed lazily at the base of a hill; while others fell dead and dying, struck by the missiles of destruction which filled the air. But the field was won, and the enemy, driven at the point of the sabre, fled unceremoniously down the heights, through Falmouth and over the bridge which spanned the Rappahannock, burning that beautiful structure behind them, to prevent pursuit."
This engagement, while otherwise of but little importance, was valuable because it taught the enemy that the Federals could use the cavalry arm of the service as effectively as their infantry.
All accounts agree that Corporal Glazier acquitted himself very creditably in his first battle. After the action was over he accompanied his comrades to the field and contributed his best aid towards the care of the wounded and the unburied dead. Such an experience was full of painful contrast to the quiet scenes of home and school life to which he had hitherto been accustomed. In his history, as with thousands of other brave boys who missed death through many battles, this period was the sharp prelude to a long experience of successive conflicts, of weary marches seasoned with hunger, of prison starvation and the many privations which fall to the lot of the soldier, all glorified when given freely in the defence of liberty and country.
CHAPTER XII.
FIRST BATTLE OF BRANDY STATION.
The sentinel's lonely round. — General Pope in command of the army. — Is gunboat service effective? — First cavalry battle of Brandy Station. — Under a rain of bullets. — Flipper's orchard. — "Bring up the brigade, boys!" — Capture of Confederate prisoners. — Story of a revolver. — Cedar Mountain. — Burial of the dead rebel. — Retreat from the Rapidan. — The riderless horse. — Death of Captain Walters.
The Harris Light now entered upon exciting times, and Corporal Glazier, ever at the post of duty, had little leisure for anything unconnected with the exigencies of camp and field. At that period the men of both armies were guilty of the barbarous practice of shooting solitary sentinels at their posts, and no man went on guard at night without feeling that an inglorious death might await him in the darkness, while deprived of the power to strike a defensive blow, or to breathe a prayer.
On the twenty-second of July, 1862, a new commander was assigned the Army of Virginia in the person of General John Pope. General McClellan had lost the confidence of the Northern people by his continued disasters, and was at length succeeded by General Pope, who was placed at the head of the united commands of Fremont, Banks, McDowell (and later in August), Burnside and Fitz-John Porter. General Pope commenced his duties with a ringing address to the army under his command. Among other things, he declared: "That he had heard much of 'lines of communication and retreat,' but the only line in his opinion, that a general should know anything about, was the line of the enemy's retreat." The dash of such a theory of war was extremely invigorating, and once more the hearts of the Northern people cherished and exulted in the hope that they had found the "right man for the right place." Popular enthusiasm reacted upon the army; their idol of yesterday was dethroned, and they girded their loins for a renewal of the struggle, in the full belief that, with Pope to lead them, they would write a very different chapter upon the page of History, from that which recorded their Peninsular campaign.