Meantime, Company 3, Regiment 5, had advanced from the right, and were just about to make a splendid bayonet-charge, by the oblique, over the picket-fence and earthwork, when the concealed Confederacy suddenly opened a deadly fire of old shoes, throwing the Mackerels into great confusion.
Almost simultaneously, a large potato struck the fleet on Duck Lake on the nose, so intensely exciting him that he incontinently touched off his swivel, to the great detriment of the surrounding country.
This was a critical moment, my boy; the least trifle on either side would have turned the scale, and given the victory to either party. Villiam Brown had just assumed the attitude in which he desired Frank Leslie's Illustrated Artist to draw him, when a familiar domestic utensil came hissing through the lurid air from the rebel works, and exploded in two pieces at his feet.
"Ha!" says Villiam, eyeing the fragments with great pallor, "they have commenced to throw shell."
In another moment that incomparable officer was at the head of a storming party; and as the fleet opened fire on the cabbage-patch in the rear of the enemy's position, an impetuous charge was precipitated in front.
Though met by a perfect hail of turnips, stove-covers, and kindling-wood, the Mackerels went over the fence like a fourth-proof avalanche, and hemmed in the rebel garrison with walls of bayonets.
"Surrender to the Union Anaconda and the United States of America," thundered Villiam.
"You're a nasty, dirty creetur," responded the garrison, who was an old lady of venerable aspect.
"Surrender, or you're a dead man, my F. F. Venus," says Villiam, majestically.
The old lady replied with a look of scorn, my boy, walked deliberately toward the road, and when last seen was proceeding in the direction of Richmond under a green silk umbrella and a heavy press of snuff.