Captain de Banyan was as cool and indifferent to danger as though he had been shot-proof. Cannon-balls and shell flew through the air; but the veteran paid no attention to them—except that once in a while they reminded him of Magenta, or some other of the numerous battle-fields where he had displayed his valor. There was little fighting for our regiment at this point, though there was a sharp action on the right of the position.
The rebels attacked our forces with tremendous vigor at Savage’s Station. It was believed by their generals that the Union army was utterly demoralized; that it was retreating in disorder towards the James River; and that a vigorous onslaught would result in its capture. The first intimation of the blunder was received at Savage’s Station, where the Confederates were decisively repulsed; yet the hope was not abandoned of ending the war by the destruction of the Army of the Potomac. The hosts of the rebellion were poured down the roads, where they could intercept the loyal forces; and the full extent of their blunder was realized only at Malvern Hills.
At noon our regiment marched through White Oak Swamp, and late in the evening bivouacked in a field near the road. During all this time the road was filled with troops, and with trains of army wagons on their way to the new “base.” Very early the next morning, the march was resumed. It was an exceedingly hot day, and the troops suffered severely from the heat. Somers was nearly exhausted when the regiment halted at noon near a church, which the surgeons had already occupied as a hospital. But nothing could disturb the equanimity of Captain de Banyan. If an opportunity offered, he rested, and went to sleep amid the screaming shells as readily as though he had been in his chamber in the “Fifth Avenue.” It was not quite so hot as it was at Magenta, nor the march quite so severe as before Solferino, nor the shot quite so thick as at Chapultepec. He never grumbled himself, and never permitted any one else to do so. If Somers ventured to suggest that events were rather hard upon him, he wondered what he would have done if he had been at Magenta, Solferino, Balaclava, or Chapultepec.
Somers was disposed to make the best of the circumstances; and though hungry, tired and nearly melted, he sustained himself with unfaltering courage amid the trials of that eventful march. All day long, the tide of army wagons and cattle flowed down the road; and the brigade remained near the church at Glendale, waiting for them to pass. At dark the order was given to move forward, while the roar of cannon and musketry reverberated on the evening air, assuring the weary veterans that the baptism of blood was at hand for them, as it had been before for their comrades in arms.
The regiment followed a narrow road through the woods, which was thronged with the débris of the conflict, hurled back by the fierce assaults of the rebels. The cowardly skulkers and the noncombatants of the engaged regiments were here with their tale of disaster and ruin; and, judging from the mournful stories they told, the once proud Army of the Potomac had been utterly routed and discomfited. Cowards with one bar, cowards with two bars, cowards with no bar, and cowards with the eagle on their shoulders, repeated the wail of disaster; and the timid would have shrunk from the fiery ordeal before them, if the intrepid officers and the mass of the rank and file had not been above the influence of the poltroons’ trembling tones and quaking limbs.
“Forward, my brave boys! I’ve been waiting all my lifetime for such a scene as this!” shouted Captain de Banyan, as he flourished his sword after the most approved style.
“Don’t mind the cowards!” said Somers, as the stragglers poured out their howls of terror.
There was little need of these stirring exhortations; for the men were as eager for the fight as the officers, and laughed with genuine glee at the pitiful aspect of the runaways. They advanced in line of battle to the support of the hard-pressed troops in front of them, and poured a withering fire into the enemy. With that fiendish yell which the Southern soldiers invariably use in the hour of battle, they rushed forward with a fury which was madness, and into which no fear of death entered.
“They are coming!” shouted Somers, as the legions of rebellion surged down upon the line, yelling like so many demons, as though they expected the veterans to be vanquished by mere noise. “Stand steady, my men!”
“That reminds me of the Russian advance at Magenta,” said Captain de Banyan, who happened to pass near the spot where Somers stood.