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"Back again in France, his promotion to the grade of lieutenant-colonel, notwithstanding his excellent ratings and his place on the promotion list, was long retarded by the ill-will of Marshal Randon, the Minister of War. Marshal Randon complained of his independent character and bore him malice from an incident relative to the furnishing of shoes intended for his battalion.
At the given moment, having no news from their emissary, the French sounded the charge, and already a battalion of Spanish infantry had been surrounded, while the cuirassiers advanced at full gallop; at the same instant the officers of the enemy, accompanied by an aide-de-camp of General Dupont, came up to Vedel. The orders of the general-in-chief were precise, they must cease firing.
Our Englishmen were all in one battalion, and charged them fiercely, when they were thrown into confusion by the cunning tricks of the Welsh, who made up in craft what they wanted in manly courage. "Look at this brook which flows to the river, it was running with blood that evening, and our men lay piled in huge heaps where they tried to scale the hill which you see yonder."
There was a lively, rattling skirmish next morning between the rear-guard and the Indians, and at one time things looked as though the thinned battalion of their comrades of the th might be cut off, and some of Devers's regiment thought the rearmost troops ought to be deployed in support of the fellows who were fighting off the warriors, who came charging after them over wave after wave of prairie.
On the night of the 19th, the battalion to which I belonged had just ended a tour of duty in the front line. We were to be relieved by another battalion of the 3rd Division of the Canadian Corps. There was but one road out, a road which at that time was considered a masterpiece of road-building. Three days had been allotted for its construction.
The next minute messengers were flying to the different trenches of the battalion to solicit and collect contributions, and the officers scrambled over each other in their noble contest to deplete their own last and cherished reserves for the supper of the guests.
But the Prussian line stood firm; they fought hard to keep the victory they had won, and besides were constantly receiving reinforcements, while we were worn out with five hours' fighting. Our battalion was now in the second line, and the enemy's shot passed over our heads; but a horrible din made my flesh creep; it was the rattling of the grape-shot among the bayonets.
Since the death of Colonel Savary, killed during the crossing of the Ukra, the 14th had been commanded by a battalion commander; when I gave this officer the order which I carried, for him to leave his position and try to rejoin the army corps, he replied that the enemy artillery which had been firing at them for an hour had occasioned such heavy losses that the handful of soldiers which he had left would inevitably be exterminated if they went down onto the level ground; and anyway there was no time to prepare for the execution of this movement, since a Russian column, coming to attack, was now close to us.
Who had told little Jim of West Point, the family did not know. But he had been told by somebody. And his cows were to him as a battalion to be commanded. The General used to watch him from his front veranda with a smile. Somewhere Jim had picked up the military salute, and he never failed to honor the General with it as he strutted past with his cows.
Continuing north through several counties, he veered northwest toward the Pennsylvania line, even now burning buildings, car-loads of freight, and bridges by the way, though hotly hounded by Shackelford, and flanked and headed off by troops in cars. Among the latter was Major W.B. Way, of the 9th Michigan, with a battalion of his regiment.
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