tom of the notch, and that was barely wide enough
for the roadbed. From the Confederate side this point was commanded by
two batteries posted on a slightly lower elevation beyond a creek, and a
half-mile away. All the guns but one were masked by the trees of an
orchard; that one--it seemed a bit of impudence--was on an open lawn
directly in front of a rather grandiose building, the planter's
dwelling. The gun was safe enough in its exposure--but only because the
Federal infantry had been forbidden to fire. Coulter's Notch--it came to
be called so--was not, that pleasant summer afternoon, a place where one
would "like to put a gun."

Three or four dead horses lay there sprawling in the road, three or four
dead men in a trim row at one side of it, and a little back, down the
hill. All but one were cavalrymen belonging to the Federal advance. One
was a quartermaster. The general commanding the division and the colonel
commanding the brigade, with their staffs and escorts, had ridden into
the notch to have a look at the enemy's guns--which had straightway
obscured themselves in towering clouds of smoke. It was hardly
profitable to be curious about guns which had the trick of the
cuttle-fish, and the season of observation had been brief. At its
conclusion--a short remove backward from where it began--occurred the
conversation already partly reported. "It is the only place," the
general repeated thoughtfully, "to get at them."

The colonel looked at him gravely. "There is room for only one gun,
General--one against twelve."

"That is true--for only one at a time," said the commander with
something like, yet not altogether like, a smile. "But then, your brave
Coulter--a whole battery in himself."

The tone of irony was now unmistakable. It angered the colonel, but he
did not know what to say. The spirit of military subordination is not
favorable to retort, nor even to deprecation.

At this moment a young officer of artillery came riding slowly up the
road attended by his bugler. It was Captain Coulter. He could not have
been more than twenty-three years of age. He was of medium height, but
very slender and lithe, and sat his horse with something of the air of a
civilian. In face he was of a type singularly unlike the men about him;
thin, high-nosed, gray-eyed, with a slight blond mustache, and long,
rather straggling hair of the same color. There was an apparent
negligence in his attire. His cap was worn with the visor a