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The next morning Captain Smith left Jan and Hippity-Hop in the front yard. It was the first time the old man had ever carried his violin with him, and he trudged briskly down the street, only stopping when he reached a corner to wave his hand back where Jan and the kitten stood with noses pushed between the pickets of the fence.
I had been particularly struck by the coolness and courage shown by Sergeants Dame and McIlhenny, and sent them out with small pickets to keep watch in front and to the left of the left wing.
On the other side of the fence were Dorothy and Ojo, looking between the pickets; and there, also, were the Champion and many other Hoppers. Diksey went close to the fence and said: "My good Hoppers, I wish to explain that what I said about you was a joke. You have but one leg each, and we have two legs each. Our legs are under us, whether one or two, and we stand on them.
Leaving Martha in charge, we went to the river, had our trunks put in the boat, and embarked; but the boat became utterly unmanageable, and began to fill with water rapidly. H. saw that we could not cross in it, and turned to come back; yet in spite of that the pickets at the battery fired on us.
But the promptness of General Sedgwick, who was personally present and commanded that part of our line, soon reformed it and restored order. On the morning of the 7th, reconnoissances showed that the enemy had fallen behind his intrenched lines, with pickets to the front, covering a part of the battle-field.
"At noon, a report being made that a party of horse had attacked and taken our boats, the pickets were ordered, but, the account proving false, they were countermanded. "The enemy's fire now began to slacken, and soon after entirely ceased.
Branch, on hearing that Jackson was at last advancing, passed the Chickahominy by Winston's Bridge, and driving Federal pickets before him, moved on Mechanicsville. General A.P. Hill was meanwhile near Meadow Bridge, waiting until the advance of Jackson and Branch should turn the flank of the Federal force which blocked his passage.
But instead of that, at the next village the sentinels of Davout's infantry corps detained him as the pickets of the vanguard had done, and an adjutant of the corps commander, who was fetched, conducted him into the village to Marshal Davout.
The Secretary of War at Washington telegraphed to McClellan that the Union armies under McDowell, Banks, Fremont and Shields were to be consolidated in one great army under McDowell which would crush Jackson utterly in the valley. At the very moment McClellan was reading this telegram the army of Jackson, far to the south of McDowell, was driving in the pickets on his own flank.
After having instructed his men to fire at everything approaching from the direction of the enemy, in his eagerness to reconnoitre the position of the Federals, and entirely forgetting his own orders, he had been riding with his staff-officers outside our pickets, when, on their return, being mistaken for the enemy, the little party were received by a South Carolina regiment with a volley that killed or wounded nearly every man of them and laid low our beloved Stonewall himself.
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