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[55]
nessee, Tenth Virginia, Thirteenth Virginia.
By the time they were ready to move, Kirby Smith rode up in a strain of tense excitement.
He assumed charge of the brigade.
The other part of his division was not up—‘The watchword is Sumter, the signal is this,’ throwing his right hand to his forehead, palm outwards.
‘Go where the fire is hottest; forward march!’
The excitement of the first fight, the growing fire, the spreading volleys, braced up the men. At the order ‘double-quick’ they struck out in a trot, down by the junction, past the cluster of huts and houses, thence straight as the crow flies toward ‘where the fire was hottest.’
After a run of a few miles the column was halted to breathe and load.
Then on again.
Wounded men coming back cried, ‘Go back.
We are all cut to pieces.
Go back.
You'll all get killed!’
But the Fourth brigade kept steadily on. As it passed a clump of pines on the right, a sharp volley from a squad of the Brooklyn Zouaves knocked General Smith over the neck of his horse and Elzey resumed command.
By that time the day had advanced to three or four o'clock. The field was dotted with retreating men, hurrying ambulances, flying wagons.
Just to the right was a squad of cavalry.
A shell burst over them and the cavalry scattered.
Running over two lines lying in ranks on the ground, still Elzey pressed on to the left.
Entering a wood, beyond which was heavy musketry firing, he formed line of battle.
Smith at Manassas had detached A. P. Hill with the Thirteenth Virginia to hold one of the fords of Bull Run.
With three regiments remaining Elzey pressed straight to the front.
Getting nearly through the wood, he halted inside the edge of it. In front were a branch and a worm fence; beyond it an open field gently rising for four hundred yards into a considerable elevation.
On the ridge stood a line of battle.
Uniforms were no designation, as the line showed no colors.
Cried Elzey to his aide-de-camp, Charles Couter, of Prince George's,
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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