With few of us sure as we talked o’er our loss
If they’d suffer us safely the river to cross.
I strolled out to the picket—some thirty were there,
With their arms in good order, their eyeballs kept bare—
When, an hour before midnight, there came quick and hard
The trample of horse charging down on the guard;
And we met them—a squadron of dare-devils they—
But a sharp edge of bayonets kept them at bay,
While we emptied some barrels, with never a corse,
Though we wounded one rider and crippled his horse.