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After an hour of quiet, a furious attack was made on Smith's brigade. The contest that ensued is described in Colonel Smith's report: "The enemy soon yielded, when a running fight commenced, which extended about a mile to our front, where we captured a battery and shot the horses and many of the cannoneers.
"Sock it to 'em. How do you like that, you ill-begotten imps of rebels?" The rebel cannoneers seemed to lose heart at once under the storm of fire that beat upon them. The volume of their fire diminished at once, and then became fitful and irregular. Two of their limbers were blown up in succession, with thunderous noise, and this further discouraged them.
Then the captain of the piece, bearing down upon the breech in order to raise the muzzle, began to point the cannon with the gravity of an astronomer levelling a telescope. "Bravo for the cannoneers!" cried Bossuet. And the whole barricade clapped their hands. A moment later, squarely planted in the very middle of the street, astride of the gutter, the piece was ready for action.
The cannoneers dismounted from the horses or dropped off the caissons, and glad of a rest lit their pipes and lay down or wandered about in search of water. The Colonel, pleased to be on time, was in gay good-humour as he talked to the men or listened to the musketry fire far to the left. He said to a group of men, "We are all as grey as the Rebs, boys, but it is good Pennsylvania dust."
The heavy troopers of Flanders and Hainault, following their spirited chieftain, dashed upon old Marshal Biron, routing his cavalry, charging clean up to the Huguenot guns and sabring the cannoneers. The shock was square, solid, irresistible, and was followed up by the German riders under Eric of Brunswick, who charged upon the battalia of the royal army, where the king commanded in person.
At the same moment the dismounted troops along my whole front moved forward, and as Custer went through the battery, capturing two of the guns with their cannoneers and breaking up the enemy's left, Gibbs and Devin drove his centre and right from the field.
Although he was given the appointment late in the day, the next morning saw cannon trained on all the avenues approaching the Tuileries, and the cannoneers standing like statues with lighted matches ready to fire upon the slightest provocation.
More than ten thousand men, cavalry and infantry, passed me, but I had no longer strength to call out to them. At last the long line ended; I saw knapsacks and shakos disappear behind the hill, and I lay down to sleep forever, when once more I was aroused by the rolling of five or six pieces of artillery along the road. The cannoneers sat sabre in hand, and behind came the caissons.
At the head of his men, he lead a headlong charge upon the Federal cavalry, which broke and fled in the wildest disorder, pursued by the ragged cannoneers, Breathed in front, with yells, cheers, and cries of defiance. They were pursued past Barboursville to the Rapidan, without pause.
Scarcely had this melody passed out of hearing when there came marching by, in gallant style, the four batteries of the Washington Artillery, of New Orleans, with officers on horseback and cannoneers mounted on the guns and caissons, all with sabers waving in cadence to the sound of their voices, singing, in its native French, "The Marseillaise," that grandest of all national airs.
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