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His pained and pallid face lit up with a glow of pride as he answered: “I belong to Gordon's old brigade, Cap'n. Did you ever see the Gin'ral in battle?
He's most the prettiest thing you ever did see on a field of fight.
It'ud put fight into a whipped chicken just to look at him.”
My gun had come again into battery in the outskirts of the town.
No enemy was in sight in our front; but in anticipation of a sudden rush I had the piece loaded and several rounds of canister taken from the ammunition chest and put down hard by the gaping muzzle, ready to sweep the street in case they should turn upon us. At this moment little George Greer, a chubby boy of sixteen, rode on by further into the town.
George was General Early's clerk and a favorite with Old Jube, just because more fond of riding courier for him and of driving spurs into the flanks of a horse than of driving pen across paper.
I shouted a caution to him as he passed, but on he went, disappearing in the smoke and dust ahead.
In a few moments a cloud of blue coats appeared in the street in front of us, coming on, too, at a run. I was about to order the detachment to open fire, when beyond and back of the men in blue I noticed little Greer, leaning forward over the neck of his horse, towering above the Federals, who were on foot; and with violent gesticulations and in tones not the gentlest, ordering the “blue devils” to “double quick to the rear of that piece,” which they did in the shortest time imaginable.
There must have been over fifty of them.
I am aware this statement sounds incredible, but the men had thrown away their arms and were cowering in abject terror in the streets and alleys.
Upon no other occasion did I see any large body of troops, on either side, so completely routed and demoralized as were the two Federal corps who were beaten at Gettysburg the evening of July ist.
And this one reminds me of other incidents of those tremendous moments when our fate hung in the balance.
There was an Irishman named Burgoyne in the Ninth Louisiana,--Harry Hayes' brigade,--a typical son of the Emerald Isle, over six feet high in his stockings (when he had any), broad-shouldered and muscular, slightly bowged,
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