fire. Tell me quickly just what you are going to do?

=Sergeant Adams:= I order my four men to deploy as skirmishers in that
field (pointing to the rough ground south of the road); I go under the
fence with the men and lead them forward at a fast run, unless the
fire is very heavy.

=Captain= (interrupting the Sergeant): Davis, you had just reached the
cut on the railroad when this happened. What do you do?

=Private Davis:= I take Evans forward with me at a run through the
cut. What do I see along the Chester Pike or Sandy Creek?

=Captain:= You see no sign of the enemy any place, except the firing
over the wall.

=Private Davis:= I run down the south side of the fill and along
towards the road with Evans to open fire on the enemy from their
flank, and also to see what is in the orchard. I will probably cross
the road so that I can see behind the stone wall.

=Captain:= That's fine and shows how you should go ahead at such a
time without any orders. There is usually no time or opportunity at
such a moment for sending instructions and you must use common sense
and do something. Generally it would have been better to have tried to
signal or send word back that there was nothing in sight along the
road or in the valley, but in this particular case you could probably
do more good by going quickly around in rear as you did, to discover
what was there and assist in quickly dislodging whatever it was. If
there had been no nose of the ridge to hide you as you came up and a
convenient railroad fill to hurry along behind as you made for the
road, your solution might have been quite different.

Sergeant, continue with your movements.

=Sergeant Adams:= I would attempt to rush the wall. If the fire were
too heavy, I would open fire (at will) with all my men, and, if I
seemed to get a little heavier fire than the enemy's, I would start
half of my men forward on a rush while the others fired. I would try
to rush in on the enemy with as little delay as possible, until it
developed that he had more than a small detachment there. I assumed it
was a delaying patrol in front of me, and as my mission requires me to
secure the uninterrupted march of the main body, I must not permit any
small detachment to delay me. If, however, it proves to be a larger
force, for instance, the head of an advance guard, I will lose some
men by plunging in, but as I understand it, that is the duty of the
point. Then again, if it be the head of a ho