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There was nothing so very unfortunate about it, from what I can gather, since it seems to have fought well on its own hook, quite up to all expectations, if not beyond. No officer at that time seemed to care to connect his name with such a rioting, nose-breaking band of desperado cavalrymen, unless it was temporarily, and that was always in the field, and never in garrison.

In a week the troop were all mounted, and during this time they had worked hard to acquire a sufficient amount of cavalry drill to enable them to perform such simple evolutions as might be necessary. Major Warrener divided the squadron into two troops, each with a captain and subaltern; all these officers being cavalrymen, as were the officers who did duty as sergeants.

I remember being present when that of the Third Army Corps, General A. P. Hill commanding, took place. Some of us young cavalrymen, then stationed near the Rappahannock, rode over to Orange Court House to see this grand military pageant.

In the smoke of another volley, two more cavalrymen pitched out of their saddles.

The charge of the cavalrymen carried them clear through the Winchester regiment, but a regiment coming up to the relief drove them back, and the great mass turning aside a little attacked anew and elsewhere. A few moments of rest were permitted Dick and his comrades, although the mighty battle wheeled and thundered all about them. But their regiment was a melancholy sight.

"There is a great deal of powder fired away to every one that gets hit." "Do you know what has happened in the town?" Don Jose asked. "I know no more than what my cousin has no doubt told you of that terrible scene at the bridge. It is evident that the French burst through the lines without any difficulty, as we saw no soldiers, except those cowardly cavalrymen, before the French arrived.

The fort had been armed with two rusty iron cannons, which had been used for salutes in the time when the Fourth of July had been generally celebrated. But it was not large enough to hold all the cavalrymen, and the second platoon of twenty-five men had been sent to a hill on the other side of the road.

Old soldiers of Lacedæmon fighting their battles in the after days, when a warrior of Platæa was as a god to each youth in Hellas, would tell how the Persian cavalrymen rode their phalanx down. “And say never,” they always added, “the Barbarians know not how to fight and how to die. Fools say it, not we of Platæa. For our first line seemed broken in a twinkling.

I galloped up to them, when they pointed out to me, at about 1,500 yards distance, on the opposite ridge, a small group of cavalrymen near a stack, and, on the side of the slope, a patrol of German dragoons, pacing slowly with lances lowered and stopping every now and then facing in our direction. I took my glasses and looked carefully at the stack.

Then we got a bad shake. A band of horsemen came riding right at us. But they turned out to be U. S. cavalrymen. They put us right on the road, and told us the Indian scare was just fool talk, and had nothing back of it. After that, all went fine and in two days we were in the Hills. "I tell you, I felt different as we stood there at our last campfire, and I says, 'Hannah, you're a wonder.