"By God, I'm glad I didn't eat that rabbit!" yelled Pinetop, as he reloaded
and raised his musket to his shoulder.
Back and forth before the line, the general of the brigade was riding
bareheaded and frantic with delight. As he passed he made sweeping gestures
with his left hand, and his long gray hair floated like a banner upon the
wind.
"They're coming, men!" he cried. "Get behind that fence and have your
muskets ready to pick your man. When you see the whites of his eyes fire,
and give the bayonet. They're coming! Here they are!"
The old "worm" fence went down, and as Dan piled up some loose rails before
him, a creeping brier tore his fingers until the blood spurted upon his
sleeve. Then, kneeling on the ground, he raised his musket and fired at one
of the skirmishers advancing briskly through the broom-sedge. In an instant
the meadow and the hill beyond were blue with swarming infantry, and the
little gray band fell back, step by step, loading and firing as it went
across the field. As the road behind it closed, Dan turned to battle on his
own account, and entering a thinned growth of pines, he dodged from tree to
tree and aimed above the brushwood. Near him the colour bearer of the
regiment was fighting with his flagstaff for a weapon, and out in the
meadow a member of the glee club, crouching behind a clump of sassafras as
he loaded, was singing in a cracked voice:--
"Rally round the flag, boys, rally once again!"
Then a bullet went with a soft thud into the singer's breast, and the
cracked voice was choked out beneath the bushes.
Pages:
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445