How they got across again, at a fordable place higher up, just in time to see the Confederacies cross again, at a fordable place lower down, I will not pause to tell you, as such information might retard enlistments.
Once more stationing myself near the General of the Mackerel Brigade, who sat astride his funereal charger like the equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, I was watching his motions attentively, when a body of horsemen suddenly dashed by him, and I saw, as they disappeared, that he was left bareheaded.
"Thunder!" says the general, winking very violently in the sunlight, and rattling his sword in a fearless manner, "where's my cap gone to?"
There was a respectful Mackerel chap at hand, and says he:
"I think it was took by the equestrian Confederacy, which has jest made another raid."
"Hum!" says the general, thoughtfully, "that's very true. Thunder!" says the general to himself, as it were: "this is all Greeley's work."
Pondering deeply over this last remark, I sauntered to another part of the field, where the Orange County Howitzers were being prepared to repel the charge of a regiment of Confederacies, who had just come within our lines for the purpose. The artillery was well handled, my boy, and not a piece would have been captured but for the splendid discipline of the gunners.
They were too well disciplined to dispute orders, my boy; and as Captain Samyule Sa-mith had accidentally forgotten to give the order to "load" before he told them to fire, the effect of our metal upon the hostile force was not as inflammatory as it might have been.
The next I saw of Samyule, he was making his report to the general, who received him with much enthusiasm.
"Where are your guns, my child?" says the general, with paternal affability.