[30]
throw himself down in the wet grass to avoid being seen by the enemy.
The sleeping men were quietly awakened by the officers and ordered to ‘Fall In’ without noise.
Trembling and with their teeth chattering from the cold, they marched to the riverbank, where the rope ferry had been repaired and the re-crossing to the Maryland side was begun and, subsequently, successfully accomplished.
As the last of the troops left the island, Capt. Hale of Company H suggested to Colonel Hinks that the two guns of Vaughn's battery fire a couple of shells over into the rebel camp.
This was done, but no response was made to their ‘Hellish Good-Night,’ and in a few hours Camp Benton was reached.
The report of the operations in and around Ball's Bluff, made shortly afterward by Colonel Hinks, occasioned considerable feeling and attracted almost universal remark and comment from the Northern press and people on account of its plain statement of the important affair.
In a letter to Adjt. Schouler, written from Poolesville, Camp Benton, October 29, 1861, Colonel Hinks says:
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Salem Press. Co., Salem, Ma., 1906.
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