"Comrades," says Villiam, his voice quivering finely with uncontrollable valor, "the eyes of future centuries are looking down upon you on this present occasion, and your distracted country expects you to propel the gleamy steel. Ah!" says Villiam, taking another hasty look at his notes, "the distracted country has great confidence in bayonet charges, which are quite valuable on account of their scarcity in this unnatural war. My fellow-beings," says Villiam, allowing several Mackerels to get in front of him, that he might more readily direct their movements, "we will now proceed to charge bayonets."
From our point of vantage, we saw that serried host sweep on, my boy, their movements being exceedingly rapid for several yards; when they went slower, and finally stopped.
Captain Samyule Sa-mith eyed them intensely through his glass, and says he: "It appears to me that there is temporary inactivity in the ranks, and I can see some manly heads turned the wrong way."
Captain Bob Shorty frowned until his left eyebrow contracted a delicate streak of smoke from his glass, and says he: "You speak like one of feeble mind, Samyule. The legs, not the head, are the portions of the human frame to be watched in a baynit charge."
Taught by this remark, I gazed at the nether continuations
of our country's hope and pride, and my glass told me that many of them were working in their sockets as though belonging to wholly irresponsible parties. Were those devoted men about to change their base of operations and entrap Stonewall Jackson's whole force again, without waiting to receive a shot?
It was a moment of dreadful suspense.
Then did the matchless genius of Villiam Brown arise to the full demands of the breathless occasion, in one of those subtle appeals to human nature's great undercurrent which leads men as children often are led. In the rear of the Confederacy's work was the slanting side of a precipitous hill, and to this hill-side he had secretly dispatched the paymaster of the corps, by a circuitous route, with a package that looked as though it might contain Treasury Notes under his arm. Just at this awful juncture, when the fate of the day hung by a hair, that paymaster made his appearance on the hill-side above the mud-work, and put on his spectacles to make himself more plainly visible.
"Comrades," says Villiam, pointing to the celestial figure, "yonder is the disbursing genius of the United States of America. Charge baynits, and let us be paid off."
Though the whole Confederacy had been in the way at that moment, my boy, it would not have delayed the charge. Forward went Company 3, Regiment 5, with mercenary celerity, capturing the hostile work with great success; and finding therein a Confederate letter, stating that the Confederacy could not so far demean itself as to fight a force whose leader had not been educated at West Point.