As the gray dawn of the winter morning deepened, objects began to grow more distinct. We shivered in our wet clothes and strained our eyes in the direction of the fort that covered the farthest approach to Great Bridge.
Something moved in the dim distance.
Slowly and surely it drew nearer, and then we saw the head of the British column coming silently over the long causeway.
I shook from head to foot with cold and excitement, and was so ashamed because I did so, I felt like doing something foolish to prove my courage. It was very trying to stand there on that cold, wet morning and not even speak above a whisper, or move more than a foot or two, while that column, with a company of grenadiers in the van, made its way to within speaking distance of us.
The enemy was so close that, even in that bad light, the features of the men were easily distinguished, and their hard, bronzed faces looked strangely fierce from under their tall grenadier hats. Then a nervous rifleman on my left blazed off his priming, and the next instant a hundred rifles rang out from the breastworks into a deep, rolling roar.
The head of the column seemed to melt away like an icicle in the sunshine. Men pitched over each other in a tangled heap of guns, arms and legs. But the rest behind them came steadily onward, firing together in volleys that sounded like a single report.
Our line fairly flamed with rifle flashes, and the men yelled and shouted at each discharge, until the blending of yells and musket firing became almost deafening.
Suddenly the column wavered. Then backward it went and appeared almost on the point of breaking. Officers waved their swords and shouted furiously at the men, and like the gallant soldiers they were, they closed up and came onward again with a scorching fire that seemed to fairly fill the air with flying lead.
A bullet cut the coon-skin cap from the head of an old hunter at my elbow, but he never even winced, and coolly bit the end off his cartridge and rammed the lead home as if making ready to fire at a target.