me and want me on their starts. I argued, to myself, as we
rode along, that the position of colonel's orderly could not be so very
unsafe, as it did not stand to reason that a colonel would go into any
place that was particularly dangerous, as long as he could send other
officers. I knew that colonels in action should ride behind their
regiments, and wondered if this colonel knew his place, or would he be
fool enough to go right ahead of his men? I was going to speak to him
about it, if we ever stopped galloping long enough, but everything was
jarred out of my head.

A fellow can think of a good many things, riding on a gallop at night,
and I guess I thought of about everything that night. There were few
interruptions of the march. There were about four stops, two being
caused by horses falling down and being run over by those behind them,
and two by carbines going off accidentally. One man was dismounted and
run over by half the horses in the regiment, and when he was pulled out
from under the horses he asked for a chew of tobacco, and saying he
was marked for life by horse shoes, he kicked his horse in the ribs for
falling down, climbed on and said the procession might move on. He was
all cut to pieces by horse's hoofs, but he was full of fight the next
morning. Another soldier had his big toe shot off by the accidental
discharge of a carbine, and when the regiment stopped, and the colonel
asked him if he wanted to stop there and wait for an ambulance to
overtake him, he said, not if there is going to be a fight. I don't
use a big toe much, anyway, and if there is a fight ahead, I want to be
there, if I haven't got a toe left on my feet. The colonel smiled and
said, all right, boy. I never saw fellows who were so anxious to fight,
and I wondered how much money it would take to induce me to go into a
fight when I was crippled up enough to be excused. Along toward morning
everybody felt that we were so far into the enemy's lines that there
must be some object in the long ride, and the probabilities of a fight
seemed to be settled in every man's mind. Up hill and down we galloped,
until it seemed to me I should fall off my horse and die. About half an
hour before daylight the command was halted, and the officers of each
company were sent for, and they surrounded the colonel, separated
from the men, and he said: "There is a town ahead, about four miles,
garrisoned by confederate troops. We are to charge it at daylight, dr