“We are to fight at last!”
And every man in that thin, dishevelled line felt his heart throb with the exultation of action long desired and long delayed. Every man but one, and he the one on whom rested the responsibility of the attack.
“Anybody but Lee!” Dunn had said with a groan, when he heard who was to lead the attacking column. And Richard, having gone with him to report some scouting work to the council of officers, and recalling Lee’s fierce opposition to any plan for battle, groaned too.
“His envy of General Washington and his imprisonment among the British have made him half Tory. He is the senior officer, it is true,—but if he had only persisted in his first refusal to lead the division and left it to La Fayette!”
But in Richard’s thoughts there was no time for doubt when, in the brilliant light of the next morning, he swept with his column over the brow of the low hill and on down the narrow valley toward the scarlet line that marked Clinton’s post. It was his first real battle; for compared with this the engagements under Sumter had been but skirmishes, and the frenzy of the fight was upon him. “For home and Joscelyn!” had been the war-cry he had set himself, thinking to carry into the hottest of every fray the memory-presence of the girl whom he loved. But when the test came she was forgotten, and only the menace ahead, the death he was rushing to meet, was remembered. Every musket along that steadfast scarlet line seemed levelled at him alone, and into his heart there flashed a momentary wish to turn and seek shelter in flight from the leaping fire of the deadly muzzles. But in the quick onset, the shouts, the growl of the guns, and the challenging call of the bugles, this fear was conquered; and in its place a wild, unreasoning delirium seized upon him, and the one thought of which he was conscious was to kill, kill, kill!
To those blue-clad men, burning with the memory of their sufferings and their wrongs, it seemed as if nothing could stand before them; but British regulars were trained to meet such an advance, and the red line was as a wall of adamant. Between the attack and the repulse there seemed to Richard scarcely breathing-time; for they were repulsed, and, fighting still, were driven back through that narrow defile, expecting every moment that Lee would send them succour so that they might again take up the offensive. But instead of reënforcements, there came that strange order to retreat. Retreat? Had there not been some mistake? The officers looked at each other incredulously, suspiciously, half-inclined to disobey; for the battle was hardly yet begun, and this first check was not a rout. Then full of rage and doubt they repeated to their subordinates the orders of the couriers, and the regiment fell back sullenly, clashing against other regiments who had not struck a blow, but to whom had also come that mysterious order to fall back. What was the matter, what was this paralyzing hand that had been laid upon them! No one could tell; but men retreated looking longingly over their shoulders at the enemy. Confusion grew almost into panic as those still further away saw the retiring columns pursued by the Redcoats, and knew not the cause nor yet what dire disaster had befallen.
Then suddenly upon the field there came the Achilles of the cause, and the rout was turned.
“The general—thank God!” the officers sobbed; and the men cheered as those who are drowning cheer a saving sail.
Richard was too far off to hear the fierce protest and rebuke heaped upon Lee, but in a few minutes an aide galloped up to his regiment and cried out to Wayne:—