Maryland."

Once again! Aye, we knew how to answer that call, for the bodies of
our comrades lay dotting the long hillside.

"Once again, and charge home!" cried Ramsay.

We sprang to the charge, and wilder, shriller, fiercer, more terrible,
rose the yell--the yell of vengeance that seemed to pick the line up
bodily and hurl it up the hill through the scorching, blistering storm
and hail of lead, fire, and smoke. I remembered naught till the crest
was gained, and Edward Veasey crying, "Charge home! Charge home!" and
we dashed in upon the scarlet line. Ah me, for a moment, then it was
glorious, as steel met steel, and we drove them, ten times our
number, back, and rolled them up against the house and forced them off
the plain. And then our hands were on the ugly muzzles of the guns,
and Edward Veasey, springing on the carriage, cheered on his men. But
ere it had died on his lips, so desperate was the struggle, the
English Captain of the guns fired, and Veasey fell. I was but a dozen
steps away, and, seeing Veasey fall, I dashed through the press of
bayonets to where the English Captain fought.

"Another one!" he cried, as we met face to face.

"Yes, and the last;" and our swords met.

"No time for that!" cried a voice at my side; then there was a flash,
and the Englishman fell back into the arms of his men, and the guns
were won for an instant. But only for an instant. Our men melted away
under the storm of lead from the Cortelyou house, and the weight of
the advancing regiments forced us back to the crest of the hill. Then
slowly, step by step, down the hill they forced us, until we rested
once more at its foot.

But still the meadow, the marsh, and the creek were black with the
mass of flying men seeking eagerly, desperately to escape, while
between them and the victorious British stretched the ranks of the
Maryland Line, now sadly thinned, for one-third of our men were dyeing
the long dank grass with their blood. But that line, thin as it was,
closed up the wide gaps in the ranks with as jaunty a step and as
gallant a carriage as when they first stepped out for the charge.
Their faces looked grim, it is true, for with the smoke and the fire,
and the blood and the dust, the genius of battle had sketched
thereon.

For a few minutes we rested at the foot of the hill, for we knew that
our work was not half done, and until the last fugitive was over
Gowanus Creek we must check the British advance. A glance from L