Breathed fell upon his feet, and, with the edge of his sabre, cut the two leaders out of the traces. He then leaped upon one of the middle horses—the gun being drawn by six—and started off.
He had not gone three paces, when the animal which he now rode fell dead in turn. Breathed rolled upon the ground, but rising to his feet, severed the dead animal and his companion from the piece, as he had done the leaders.
He then leaped upon one of the wheel-horses—these alone being now left—struck them furiously with his sabre—started at a thundering gallop down the hill—and pursued by a hail-storm of bullets, from which, as General Lee says in his report, “he miraculously escaped unharmed,” carried off the gun in safety, and rejoined the cavalry, greeted by a rolling thunder of cheers.
Such was the manner in which Breathed fought his artillery, and the narrative is the barest and most simple statement of fact.
Breathed came out of the war a lieutenant-colonel only. Napoleon would have made him a marshal.
XXXIV. — MY LAST RIDE WITH STUART.
More than one stirring incident marked those days of desperate fighting, when, barricading all the roads, and charging recklessly, Stuart opposed, at every step, Grant’s advance toward the Po.
But I can not describe those incidents. They must be left to others. The pen which has paused to record that exploit of Breathed, is drawn onward as by the hand of Fate toward one of those scenes which stand out, lugubrious and bloody, from the pages of history.