Andersonville | Page 8

except what the
companies ahead of us are doing. We are wrought up to the highest
pitch. As Company K clears its ground, we press forward eagerly. Now
we go into line just as we raise the hill, and as my four comes around, I
catch a hurried glimpse through a rift in the smoke of a line of butternut
and gray clad men a hundred yards or so away. Their guns are at their

faces, and I see the smoke and fire spurt from the muzzles. At the same
instant our sabers and revolvers are drawn. We shout in a frenzy of
excitement, and the horses spring forward as if shot from a bow.
I see nothing more until I reach the place where the Rebel line stood.
Then I find it is gone. Looking beyond toward the bottom of the hill, I
see the woods filled with Rebels, flying in disorder and our men yelling
in pursuit. This is the portion of the line which Companies I and K
struck. Here and there are men in butternut clothing, prone on the
frozen ground, wounded and dying. I have just time to notice closely
one middle-aged man lying almost under my horse's feet. He has
received a carbine bullet through his head and his blood colors a great
space around him.
One brave man, riding a roan horse, attempts to rally his companions.
He halts on a little knoll, wheels his horse to face us, and waves his hat
to draw his companions to him. A tall, lank fellow in the next four to
me--who goes by the nickname of "'Leven Yards"--aims his carbine at
him, and, without checking his horse's pace, fires. The heavy Sharpe's
bullet tears a gaping hole through the Rebel's heart. He drops from his
saddle, his life-blood runs down in little rills on either side of the knoll,
and his riderless horse dashes away in a panic.
At this instant comes an order for the Company to break up into fours
and press on through the forest in pursuit. My four trots off to the road
at the right. A Rebel bugler, who hag been cut off, leaps his horse into
the road in front of us. We all fire at him on the impulse of the moment.
He falls from his horse with a bullet through his back. Company M,
which has remained in column as a reserve, is now thundering up close
behind at a gallop. Its seventy-five powerful horses are spurning the
solid earth with steel-clad hoofs. The man will be ground into a
shapeless mass if left where he has fallen. We spring from our horses
and drag him into a fence corner; then remount and join in the pursuit.
This happened on the summit of Chestnut Ridge, fifteen miles from
Jonesville.
Late in the afternoon the anxious watchers at Jonesville saw a single

fugitive urging his well-nigh spent horse down the slope of the hill
toward town. In an agony of anxiety they hurried forward to meet him
and learn his news.
The first messenger who rushed into Job's presence to announce the
beginning of the series of misfortunes which were to afflict the upright
man of Uz is a type of all the cowards who, before or since then, have
been the first to speed away from the field of battle to spread the news
of disaster. He said:
"And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have
slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped
alone to tell thee."
So this fleeing Virginian shouted to his expectant friends:
"The boys are all cut to pieces; I'm the only one that got away."
The terrible extent of his words was belied a little later, by the
appearance on the distant summit of the hill of a considerable mob of
fugitives, flying at the utmost speed of their nearly exhausted horses.
As they came on down the hill as almost equally disorganized crowd of
pursuers appeared on the summit, yelling in voices hoarse with
continued shouting, and pouring an incessant fire of carbine and
revolver bullets upon the hapless men of the Sixty-fourth Virginia.
The two masses of men swept on through the town. Beyond it, the road
branched in several directions, the pursued scattered on each of these,
and the worn-out pursuers gave up the chase.
Returning to Jonesville, we took an account of stock, and found that we
were "ahead" one hundred and fifteen prisoners, nearly that many
horses, and a considerable quantity of small arms. How many of the
enemy had been killed and wounded could not be told, as they were
scattered over the whole fifteen miles between where the fight occurred
and the pursuit ended. Our