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Yet this was no time to hesitate, to debate; it was a moment for decisive action. The blow must be struck at once, before daylight, with all the power of surprise. The little body of cavalrymen was divided into four detachments. Two of these were at once marched to the left, circling the village silently in the darkness, and taking up a position at the farther extremity.
The appointed hour having arrived, I had just finished in haste the toilet of the Emperor, which was very short, and he had already put his foot in the stirrup, when we saw running towards us on foot, with the utmost speed and all out of breath, some cavalrymen belonging to the army corps of the Duke of Ragusa.
On the other side of the field the artillerymen and cavalrymen ate, holding their reins under their arms, while their officers stood around some temporary table, served by canteen men of the united divisions. Tiny columns of blue smoke rose where coffee was making, and everywhere were the swift movement and sprightly good-fellowship in which the soldier feels himself in his natural element.
"I don't believe it, sir!" replied McRae, strutting around as mad as a hornet. "You mustn't talk so, sir! you will demoralize my men!" He was soon convinced, however, by seeing Yankee cavalrymen walking their horses around as composedly as though the Army of Northern Virginia had never existed.
The Union cavalrymen made for these openings, not halting or hesitating for an instant. The fence was taken and breaking through they put to flight the confederate cavalrymen who did not stop until they found refuge behind their infantry lines. The union line was broken up too.
This is true not only of Roman cavalrymen, for later on we shall see the best riders, the Gauls, the Germans, the Parthanians even, dismounting in order really to fight.
They had not offered to come to the assistance of Captain Coonly when he was in the gripe of the stalwart sergeant; for the carbines of the cavalrymen still covered them, and they saw that they would be shot down if they attempted to descend the stairs without orders, or fired upon their assailants in the hall.
He was convinced that enough gallant cavalrymen were over yonder to entertain the fair mistress, so that she would no longer wait for any more tiresome philosophizing from him. Every evening he could hear the band playing on the veranda of the manor, and very often, too, the merry dance-music, which floated from the open windows until a late hour of the night.
A speculator bridged a couple of barrels with a board and we hired standing places on it. Presently there was a sound of distant music; in another minute a pillar of dust came moving slowly toward us; a moment more and then, with colors flying and a grand crash of military music, a gallant array of cavalrymen emerged from the dust and came down the street on a gentle trot.
The fall of the gigantic Tennessee lieutenant had created something like a panic among his cavalrymen who were pressing forward to flank the Kentuckians; and Sergeant Fronklyn, his face still covered with blood, seized the opportunity of their retirement to the rear to drag the form of Lieutenant Lyon out of the mêlée, and place him on the bank of the creek which bounded the camp on the west.
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