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They would again be re-formed and make another gallant assault, only to again be broken and driven back with fearful slaughter. After having charged, as I have said, six or seven times, and each time been repulsed with great loss, Captain Alban was taken prisoner and hurried to the Confederate rear.
Regiments joined their brigades, brigades their divisions, and the divisions re-formed their corps. Officers on horseback carried orders back and forth, everything was in motion. Our battalion joined Donzelot's division; the others had only eight battalions, but his had nine. I have often heard the veterans repeat the order of battle given by Napoleon.
Then they were divided into two equal parts, which were marched to the opposite extremities of the plateau, when they faced about, and, charging down upon each other, engaged in a very realistic sham fight, lasting for the best part of an hour, and resulting in quite a number of casualties, several of the men being unhorsed and sustaining more or less serious injuries; after which the regiment re-formed, and we all returned to the kraal at a gallop, a party being detailed to remain behind and bring in the injured at a more sober pace.
Meanwhile the Syracusans rallied at the Helorine road, where they re-formed as well as they could under the circumstances, and even sent a garrison of their own citizens to the Olympieum, fearing that the Athenians might lay hands on some of the treasures there. The rest returned to the town.
The guns had already rattled through the line, and the companies drew away from the edge of the wood, re-formed with great speed, and were soon marching once more in column of route along the road. The Subaltern felt exhausted in a way that he had never felt so badly before. The withdrawal from the actual scene of battle seemed to leave a gulf in his inside that positively yawned.
The first attack had been most brilliantly repulsed, but this was only preliminary to a conflict which was to last all through the day; the Moslem galleys withdrew out of gunshot and re-formed; then a squadron of twenty advanced, delivered their fire, and retired; their place was then taken by a second squadron, which went through the same performance, and then came on a third.
In extended order they re-formed and dashed across the plateau a rapidly contracting line of khaki tipped with steel. Almost in the centre of the top of the kopje was an irregular mound of piled rocks and earth. Towards this the Waffs charged, their officers momentarily expecting the rattle of musketry and the tic-tac of machine-guns.
At length since I must continue this sad story on the evening of the nineteenth, we bivouacked at Lutzen, where our regiments re-formed as best they might. The next day early, as we marched on Weissenfels, we had to skirmish with the Westphalians, who followed us as far as the village of Eglaystadt. The twenty-second we bivouacked on the glacis at Erfurt, where we received new shoes and uniforms.
In 1869 Marshal Leboeuf had done away with the Garde Mobile, a sort of militia which had involved only fifteen days' drill in the year; and the Garde Nationale of the towns was less fit for campaigning than the re-formed Mobiles proved to be later on in the war. Thus France had no reserves: everything rested on the 330,000 men struggling towards the frontiers.
He went on with his story, telling how the British troops ran before the fire of the Yankees, how they re-formed and came on a second time, and were repulsed again, how General Clinton went over from Boston with reinforcements, how Charlestown was set on fire, how the flames leaped from house to house, and curled round the spire of the church, how the red-coats advanced a third time beneath the great black clouds of smoke, how the ammunition of the Yankees gave out, and they were obliged to retreat, how General Putnam tried to rally them, how they escaped across Charlestown Neck, where the cannon-balls from the British floating batteries raked the ranks!
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