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The twelve men of the picket-guard came running at the sound of firing. We attacked them with the sabre and they also took to flight. However there remained about thirty men still in the pond, afraid to try to escape because we occupied the only way out. They shouted to us that they were surrendering; I accepted this and as they came to the bank, made them throw down their arms.
The 6th of May was given to Schofield and McPherson to get into position, and on the 7th General Thomas moved in force against Tunnel Hill, driving off a mere picket-guard of the enemy, and I was agreeably surprised to find that no damage had been done to the tunnel or the railroad.
Others have such confidence in the strength of their virtue, such commanding arrogance of integrity, that, like a captain who underestimates the force of an enemy and overrates his own, they neglect to place a picket-guard on the outskirts of their moral camp, and in such an hour as they think not they are surprized and lost.
The outbreak of the Civil War furnished him a host of subjects which he treated with a patriotic fervor that went straight to the heart of an overwrought people. "The Returned Volunteer," "The Picket-Guard," "The Sharp-shooters," "The Camp-fire," "One More Shot," and many others, came from his studio in rapid succession. They were all thoroughly American, and some were even admirably sculptural.
When the recall was sounded, our men came in loaded down with plunder in the shape of hats, haversacks, blankets, pistols, and shotguns, in a quantity which amply repaid for the surprise of the morning, but did not excuse the delinquent commander of our picket-guard, who a few days later was brought to a realizing sense of his duty by a court-martial.
He returned about half an hour before day and waked us, and told us that he was going to attack the picket of the enemy. That we had only to follow him, and then forbid any man to speak or to fire, on pain of death. He led us between the sentinels in such a way that we were within a few yards of the picket-guard before they suspected our approach.
The astonished confederates fired a few volleys of musketry, and our guns threw among them a few charges of cannister, and the rebels fled precipitately. A number of prisoners were captured, among them the officer of the picket-guard. Colonel Irwin, of the Forty-ninth Pennsylvania, who had, at Antietam, commanded the Third brigade of the Second division, was among the wounded on our side.
He is still a private it may be because no commission has offered on such terms as a true man could accept; and it may be because he believes the true romance and glory of war to lie with the soldier, and not the officer the danger of the lonely picket-guard and the song and story of camp and bivouac, supplying a fresh and glorious excitement to which the superior must always remain a stranger.
Questioned about the defensive precautions taken by these Hussars, he said that before one reached the houses, they had posted a picket-guard which was in a garden surrounded by hedges, and that when he went through the hamlet, the remainder were preparing to water their horses at a little pond on the far side of the buildings. Having received this information, I had now to make a plan of action.
He was admitted, and, having been heard, the colonel bestowed on him the vacant post of lieutenant of the corps, and directed him to be ready, with a picket-guard, to march, at eight o'clock in the evening, to the spot he had occupied the night before, where he was to place his hat and coat upon the stump, and then lie in ambush for the intruders.
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