ide the men as they moved. In fifteen minutes they were at the
water's edge. Then the company was deployed as skirmishers, two thirds
halting where they struck the water and the rest keeping on up the bank
of the river for a few hundred yards. Sherman was eying every inch of
the bank until, suddenly reaching a break where fresh tracks of a horse
were visible, he directed his orderly to follow, and plunged into the
water. It was not up to the horses' knees from bank to bank. Riding
back, his face aglow, the colonel ordered the captain to cross half his
men and station them up and down on the bank where they would not be
seen by the rebels on the high ground above. Then, addressing Jack,
he said:

"Sergeant, select two or three trusty men. Follow the bank of the stream
until you come to General Hunter's division, which may be a mile,
perhaps more, to the right yonder; you can tell by the firing soon. Tell
General Hunter that we have discovered a ford and shall not have to
fight for the stone bridge. We shall be across in no time and take the
enemy in the rear. If you can't find Hunter, give this intelligence to
any officer in command. Stay."

He scribbled a line on a sheet of his order-book, saying: "This will be
your authority. It's better not to write the rest for fear you should be
captured. In case you are in danger tell each man with you what to say,
so that there will be more chances of getting the information where it
will do good; and remember, sergeant, that this news in Hunter's hands
will be almost equivalent to victory. Ah!"

He paused again. Reverberating crashes came from the high grounds up the
river. "You will have no trouble in finding him now. Those are Hunter's
guns. Hurry."

Glowing, grateful, big with the fate of the battle, Jack had Barney,
Nick, and another, whom he charged with the duty of historian, detailed
for this duty of glory. The group set off with a fervent Godspeed from
the company sheltered among the thick pines and oaks.

"Now, boys," Jack said, every inch the captain, "we must spread out like
skirmishers. Our chief danger will be from the left, as no one will be
likely to be in the water but our own men, and we must look as sharply
for them as for the enemy. I will take the center; you, Barney, the
left, next to me; and you, Nick, four paces farther to the left." Jack
looked at his watch. It was just 9.30, Sunday morning, July 21, 1861.
The crash of musketry ahead now became one un