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When morning came long lines were seen defiling into the breastworks, and the familiar battle-flags of the Army of Northern Virginia rose above the long line of bayonets giving assurance that the possession of Petersburg would be obstinately disputed. General Lee had moved with his accustomed celerity, and, as usual, without that loss of time which results from doubt of an adversary's intentions.
In this situation they were when the domiciliary visitors arrived they heard the noise of the soldiers' feet on the stairs the poor woman sprang from the arms of her children; but at the moment the door was opened, and she saw the glittering of the bayonets, she fell at full length in a swoon on the floor fortunately before she had power to utter a syllable.
But suppose a hillock close in front, or a pit, full of Arabs, into which they could not fire, just under their muzzles, and they would become weak places, where the enemy could surge in without being met by the bristling bayonets, and so stab the soldiers on the right and left of the angle in their backs, increasing the gap, through which their friends might penetrate.
He could see puffs of musketry smoke that seemed to chase one another down the hillsides, and clouds of cannon smoke rolling, spreading, and mingling with one another. He could also, by the gleam of bayonets visible through the smoke, make out moving masses of infantry and narrow lines of artillery with green caissons.
Perhaps General Pope and not Colonel Winchester had been right after all, and the Confederates were crushed. Awaiting them was only a rear guard which would flee at the first flash of the bayonets in the wood. The great line marched steadily onward, and the cannon thundered and roared over the heads of the men raking the wood with steel. Still no reply.
Just a bit groggy. All right in a moment." "By the Lord Harry, I'll see you through. Now buck up. Hear that?" cried Cutty, throwing up a window. "Music." "Look through that street there. See the glint of bayonets? American soldiers, marching up Fifth Avenue, thousands of them, freemen who broke the vaunted Hindenburg Line. God bless 'em!
The crash did not seem so loud to them now, because they were partly deafened for the time by a cannonade of such violence and length. Dick looked back once more at the great cloud of dust which was now much nearer, but there was nothing yet to indicate what it bore within, the bayonets of the North or those of the South. His anxiety became almost intolerable.
Shouting came from a distance, as the soldiers from the various street corners came running into the Bergenstrasse to the assistance of their comrades, and, since they ran compactly and with bayonets fixed, the mob gave way before them. An officer, whose plunging horse cleared a path before him, slashed right and left as he came, and shouted: "To the prisoner!
Now thousands of feet and bayonets moved and halted at the officers' command, turned with banners flying, formed up at intervals, and wheeled round other similar masses of infantry in different uniforms; now was heard the rhythmic beat of hoofs and the jingling of showy cavalry in blue, red, and green braided uniforms, with smartly dressed bandsmen in front mounted on black, roan, or gray horses; then again, spreading out with the brazen clatter of the polished shining cannon that quivered on the gun carriages and with the smell of linstocks, came the artillery which crawled between the infantry and cavalry and took up its appointed position.
He took counsel with the revolutionary leaders at Paris, and passed through Italy to the frontiers of the Papal States, whence the fatal reaction, supported by French bayonets, at Rome, sent him back once more to the land of his adoption, whither he was soon followed by many of the heroic and unfortunate men who redeemed the martial fame, without being able to retrieve the fate of Italy.
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