's lying there in a little
piney wood. He was bleeding and bleeding--I saw him--but I reckon the
blood has stopped. And we were all so hungry. I didn't get no breakfast.
There's a plateau and the Henry House, and then there's a dip and
Young's Branch, and then there's a hill called the Mathews Hill. We were
there--on the Mathews Hill--we ain't on it now." Two officers appeared,
one on foot, the other mounted, both pale with rage. "You'll be on it
again, if you have to be dragged by the heels! Get back there, you
damned, roustabout cowards!" The mounted man laid about him with his
sabre; the lieutenant, afoot, wrenched from a strapping fellow his
Belgian musket and applied the stock to the recreant's shoulders. The
65th left the clamour, swept onward between the pines, and presently, in
the narrow road, met a braver sort, men falling back, but without panic.
"Hot as hell, sir, on the other side of the hill! No, we're not running.
I'll get the men back. It's just that Sykes was in front of us with his
damned Regulars. Beg your pardon, general--? General Jackson. I'll get
the men back--damned--blessed--if I don't, sir! Form right here, men!
The present's the best time, and here's the best place."

At the crest of the hill the 65th came upon Imboden's battery--the
Staunton Artillery--four smoothbore, brass six-pounders, guns, and
caissons drawn by half the proper number of horses--the rest being
killed--and conducted by wounded, exhausted, powder-grimed and swearing
artillerymen. Imboden, in front, was setting the pitch.
"---- ----! ---- ----! ---- ---- ----!" Jackson checked Little Sorrel and
withered the battery and its captain. "What are you doing here, sir,
blaspheming and retreating? Outfacing your God with your back to the
enemy! What--"

Imboden, an entirely gallant man, hastened to explain. "Beg pardon,
general! Bad habit, I acknowledge, but the occasion excuses--My battery
has spent the morning, sir, on the Henry Hill, and damn me, if it hasn't
been as lonely there as the Ancient Mariner! No support--not a damned
infantryman in sight for the last half hour! Alone down there by the
Robinson House, and Ricketts and Griffin--Regulars by the Lord!--and the
devil knows how many batteries beside playing on us with Parrotts and
twelve-pounder howitzers like all the fountains at Versailles! The
ground looks as though it had been rooted by hogs! No support, and no
orders, and on the turnpike a bank of blue massing to rush