ed his cartridge box in place, glanced at
his musket, glanced toward his immediate officer. Across the intervals ran
an indefinable spark, a bracing, a tension. Some of the men moistened their
lips, one or two uttered a little sigh, the hearts of all beat faster. The
step had quickened. The trees grew more thinly, came down to a mere
bordering fringe of sumach. Cleave motioned to the bugler; the latter
raised the bugle to his lips. _Forward!--Commence--Firing!_ The two
companies in blue, marched down that morning superfluously to picket a
region where was no danger, received that blast and had their moment of
stupour. Laughter died suddenly. A clock might have ticked twice while they
sat or stood as though that were all there was to do. The woods blazed, a
long crackle of musketry broke the spell. A blue soldier pitched forward,
lay with his head in the water. Another, seated in the shade, his back to a
sugar maple, never more of his own motion left that resting place; a third,
undressing for a bath, ran when the others ran, but haltingly, a red mark
upon his naked thigh. All ran now, ran with cries and oaths toward the
stacked rifles. Ere they could snatch the guns, drop upon their knees, aim
at the shaken sumach bushes and fire, came a second blaze and rattle and a
leaden hail.

Out of the wood burst the long skirmish line. It yelled; it gave the
"rebel yell." It rushed on, firing as it came. It leaped the stream, it
swallowed up the verdant mead, it came on, each of its units yelling
death, to envelop the luckless two companies. One of these was very near
at hand, the other, for the moment more fortunate, a little way down the
stream, near the Front Royal road. Cleave reached, a grey brand, the
foremost of the two. "Surrender!"

The blue captain's sword lay with other paraphernalia on the grass
beneath the trees, but he signified assent to the inevitable. The
reserve, hurrying down from the wood, took the captured in charge. The
attack swept on, tearing across the meadow to the Front Royal road,
where the second company had made a moment's stand, as brave as futile.
It fired two rounds, then broke and tore down the dusty road or through
the bordering fields toward Front Royal. Cleave and his skirmishers
gained. They were mountain men, long of limb; they went like Greek
runners, and they tossed before them round messengers of death. The
greater number of blue soldiers, exhausted, slackened in their pace,
halted, thre