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Updated: June 22, 2025
I doubt if he would have been so rash had he known that Yeates and his borderers were concealed in easy pistol-shot; but the simultaneous cracking of a dozen rifles warned and sent the trio scuttling back to cover. Dick swore piteously, with the snap-shot skirmishers for a target. "The fumblers!" he raged.
When he overtakes them he finds every man securely posted behind a tree, loading, firing, and conducting himself generally with great deliberation and prudence. They have at last driven the enemy's skirmishers in upon the line of battle, and are waiting. A score of men have fallen here, some killed outright, some slightly, some sorely, and some mortally wounded.
In nearly every one of these expeditions the enemy was encountered, and the wagons were usually loaded while the skirmishers kept up a running fire, Often there would occur a respectable brush, with the loss on each side of a number of killed and wounded.
It fired two rounds, then broke and tore down the dusty road or through the bordering fields toward Front Royal. Cleave and his skirmishers gained. They were mountain men, long of limb; they went like Greek runners, and they tossed before them round messengers of death. The greater number of blue soldiers, exhausted, slackened in their pace, halted, threw down their arms.
Their non-arrival aroused in me suspicions of foul play, so with all the men I could spare, and accompanied by Lieutenant William T. Welcker, of the Ordnance Corps a warm and intimate friend I went in search of the family, deploying the men as skirmishers across the valley, and marching them through the heavy forest where the ground was covered with fallen timber and dense underbrush, in order that no point might escape our attention.
Finding this Gap well guarded with artillery and infantry, the command halted for a short time for consultation. The result of this was as follows: A strong line of skirmishers were to be shown to the enemy, the artillery to be put in position loaded with shell, spiked and wheels cut down.
Two came in quick succession over the eastern wall of the valley and then one over the western. All three burst two on impact, one in the air. A fourth ripped along a stone shelter behind which skirmishers were firing. A fifth missed the valley altogether and screeched away into the plain clear of the hills. The officers and men were quite callous. They scarcely troubled to look up.
As soon as this was done two French columns of infantry, preceded by a battalion in line, advanced along the edge of the wood, while a heavy mass of cavalry advanced along the Ghent road, and threatened the Brunswickers with destruction. The Brunswick, Dutch, and Belgian skirmishers fell back before those of the French.
Behind him was the hastily arming camp, humming with the bustle of preparation; and before him, advancing across the stony plain, moved a line of skirmishers backed up by closed supports, and followed by great hordes of shouting warriors. The motionless troop of the Guides stood foremost to meet the shock.
Also these men will be more disturbed, will fire faster and less accurately, as the fight is more bitter, the enemy stauncher; and perturbation is more contagious than coolness. The target is a line of skirmishers, a target offering so little breadth and above all depth, that outside of point blank fire, an exact knowledge of the range is necessary to secure effect.
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