"I judge that your time has not been wasted this forenoon," said Deck.
"It has not, indeed," replied the commander of the company; and he proceeded to detail his experience with the enemy at Breedings.
He found on his arrival at that place that the marauders were a foraging-party of regular Confederate cavalry, and not guerillas. It consisted of at least a platoon, or half a company. They were coming across the field from the Millersville Road. As soon as they discovered the Riverlawn force, the enemy retreated, as the captain understood it; but they were only hastening to a small fortification of earthworks thrown up by the Confederate Home Guards of the place, who were in the majority in that locality, although there were several rich planters in the district who were Union men.
The fort had been armed with two rusty iron cannons, which had been used for salutes in the time when the Fourth of July had been generally celebrated. But it was not large enough to hold all the cavalrymen, and the second platoon of twenty-five men had been sent to a hill on the other side of the road. The commander sent Lieutenant Belthorpe to attack them there, while he gave his attention to the enemy in the fort.
The two guns, loaded with home-made grape-shot, were discharged; but the gunners were utterly ignorant of the art of handling the pieces, and the scattering bullets all went over the heads of the loyal cavalrymen. The captain did not give them time to repeat the experiment, for he ordered his lieutenant to charge over the earthwork before they had time to load again. The fort had been constructed in a very rude manner, without the help of an engineer; and it was only a sort of windrow of earth, as hay is raked up in a field, and the mounted men had no difficulty in riding over it.
The Confederates had dismounted, turning their horses into a field. This was a fatal mistake on the part of their officer. His men were huddled together with the Home Guards in the small space; and though they fought bravely, they were soon ridden down, and totally defeated. Many of them had been killed or disabled, and the Home Guards had run away as soon as the horses began to ride them down. The officer called for quarter, and surrendered. He and his men were paroled at once.
At the hill Lieutenant Belthorpe had vigorously attacked the second platoon, and soon drove them from their ground. When the victory was won at the fort, Captain Gordon re-enforced Belthorpe with twenty men while the paroling was in process; and the enemy seeing that they were outnumbered more than before, when they were driven from the hill, gave up the fight, and fled at the best speed of their horses by the way they had come. The lieutenant in command pursued them as far as the road, when the recall was sounded near the fort, and they returned to the little village. Captain Letcher was in command of the platoon, and he had continued to retreat, believing that his pursuers were still following him.
CHAPTER VIII
BEFORE THE BATTLE OF MILL SPRINGS