ear were behaving I could not tell,--not so coolly, I afterwards found,
because they were more entirely bewildered, supposing, until the shots
came, that the column had simply halted for a moment's rest, as had
been done once or twice before. They did not know who or where their
assailants might be, and the fall of the man beside me created a
hasty rumor that I was killed, so that it was on the whole an alarming
experience for them. They kept together very tolerably, however, while
our assailants, dividing, rode along on each side through the open
pine-barren, firing into our ranks, but mostly over the heads of
the men. My soldiers in turn fired rapidly,--too rapidly, being yet
beginners,--and it was evident that, dim as it was, both sides had
opportunity to do some execution.

I could hardly tell whether the fight had lasted ten minutes or an hour,
when, as the enemy's fire had evidently ceased or slackened, I gave the
order to cease firing. But it was very difficult at first to make them
desist: the taste of gunpowder was too intoxicating. One of them was
heard to mutter, indignantly, "Why de Cunnel order _Cease firing_, when
de Secesh blazin' away at de rate ob ten dollar a day?" Every incidental
occurrence seemed somehow to engrave itself upon my perceptions, without
interrupting the main course of thought. Thus I know, that, in one of
the pauses of the affair, there came wailing through the woods a cracked
female voice, as if calling back some stray husband who had run out to
join in the affray, "John, John, are you going to leave me, John? Are
you going to let me and the children be killed, John?" I suppose the
poor thing's fears of gunpowder were very genuine; but it was such
a wailing squeak, and so infinitely ludicrous, and John was probably
ensconced so very safely in some hollow tree, that I could see some of
the men showing all their white teeth in the very midst of the fight.
But soon this sound, with all others, had ceased, and left us in
peaceful possession of the field.

I have made the more of this little affair because it was the first
stand-up fight in which my men had been engaged, though they had been
under fire, in an irregular way, in their small early expeditions. To me
personally the event was of the greatest value: it had given us all an
opportunity to test each other, and our abstract surmises were changed
into positive knowledge. Hereafter it was of small importance what
nonsense might be ta