It was imperative that I should obey orders and report to General Buford.
I had found him all right, but there remained between us the little space that I must cross. I screwed up my courage to the sticking point, and, with my head bent low, I made the run safely into the grove, where I found General Buford sitting quietly on his horse, accompanied by one or two of his Staff. He did not seem to have a happy or satisfied look, and I judged at once, from his uneasy manner, that something was going wrong. I soon found out. General Reynolds was lying by the two little elms along side of the fence, dying or dead. This was what put so serious and sorrowful an expression on the faces of all the officers just then. A Rebel sharpshooter from that stone barn had killed the best General the Army of the Potomac contained—he whom we all knew at headquarters should have been its Commander-in-Chief.
Every moment we staid in the grove was a holy terror to me; it seemed as if the whole Rebel artillery had discovered that it was headquarters, and were concentrating their shells into it. They would go crashing through the tree-tops, shrieking and tearing through the branches of the trees as we used to throw clubs into apple trees to knock down the fruit. General Buford, noticing my uneasiness as I'd glance up through the trees, as if expecting to see the apples fall, quietly observed to me: "They have not got the range yet." He said this in a tone indicating that he was only waiting till they did get it, before he should leave.
My horse became awfully nervous, to say nothing of myself, and I didn't feel that I wanted the Rebel artillery to hunt their range with me for a target.
I became suddenly solicitous about the expediency of looking after some signal and telegraph business in the town, a mile or so to the rear, and safely "beyond range."
So, riding up to the General, saluting in the Regular Army style, bowing my head low as a shell went over, I meekly suggested going back to town to see if there were any telegraph operators to be found.
"All right," said the General, significantly, "We will all be back there soon."
Turning my horse's head to the rear, I didn't hesitate so long about starting as I had for the barn, but boldly made a dash to the rear over a lot of old fields that lay between the grove and the Seminary.
I thought it about a mile distant at that time, and I have since visited the ground and was surprised to find it so short a distance; but I covered it so quickly then that some allowance may be made for the miscalculation.
I don't believe any horse-race jockey ever got over the same amount of the earth any quicker than I did that last quarter on the home stretch—I had got "in range," and was in a hurry to get out.