With that resistless impetus with which they had, over and over again, broken through the granite mass of packed squares and bristling bayonets, the Southerners, raising their wild war-whoop, thundered on to the bridge, which, strongly framed of stone and iron, had withstood the shock, as they had foreseen; and while the fiery glare shone, and the seething flame hissed, on the boiling waters below, swept, full gallop, over the torn limbs, the blackened bodies, the charred wood, the falling timbers, the exploding powder, with which the passage of the bridge was strewn, and charged through the hellish din, the lurid fire, the heavy smoke, at a headlong pace, down into the Federal camp.
A thousand shots fell like hail amongst them, but not a saddle was emptied, not even a trooper was touched; and with their line unbroken, and the challenge of their war-shout pealing out upon the uproar, they rode through the confusion worse confounded, and cutting their way through shot and sabre, through levelled rifles, and through piled earthworks, with their horses breathing fire, and the roar of the opening musketry pealing out upon their rear, dashed on, never drawing rein, down into the darkness of the front defile, and into the freshness of the starry summer night, saved by the leader that they loved, and—FREE!
"Tarnation cheeky thing to do. Guess they ain't wise to rile us that way," said a Federal general from Vermont, as they discussed this exploit of the Eight Hundred at the Federal head-quarters.
"A splendid thing!" said an English visitor to the Northern camp, who had come for a six months' tour to see the war for himself, having been in his own time the friend of Paget and Vivian and Londonderry, the comrade of Picton, of Mackinnon, and of Arthur Wellesley. "A magnificent thing! I remember Bouchard did something the same sort of thing at Amarante, but not half so pluckily, nor against any such odds. Who's the fellow that led the charge? I'd give anything to see him and tell him what I think of it. How Will Napier would have loved him, by George!"
"Who's the d——d rebel, Jed?" said the General, taking his gin-sling.
"Think he's an Englishman. We'd give ten thousand dollars for him, alive or dead: he's fifty devils in one, that I know," responded the Colonel of Artillery, thus appealed to, a gentlemanlike, quiet man, educated at West Point.
"God bless the fellow! I'm glad he's English!" said the English visitor, heartily, forgetting his Federal situation and companions. "Who is he? Perhaps I know the name."
"Should say you would. It's the same as your own—Winton. Bertie Winton, they call him. Maybe he's a relative of yours!"
The blood flushed the Englishman's face hotly for a second; then a stern dark shadow came on it, and his lips set tight.