and
watching our shells go over to the woods where the rebels were. Then
I found myself hoping our shells were just paralyzing the Johnnies.
Presently the ambulances began to come by us, loaded with wounded, and
that settled it. When there was no fighting, and I was half sick, and
felt under obligations to a Confederate girl for taking care of me,
I didn't want any of her friends hurt, but when her friends forgot
them-selves, and come to a peaceable place, and began to kill off our
boys, friendship ceased, and I wondered why we didn't get orders to
saddle up and go in. We were all on the hill watching things, when the
colonel, who had been riding off somewhere, came along. We thought he
would order us all under arrest for disobeying orders, but he rode up to
us, and pointing to a place off to the right a mile or so, where there
was a sharp infantry fight, he said, "Boys, we shall probably go in
right there about 3 p.m., unless the rebels are reinforced," and he rode
down to his tent. Well, after about twenty ambulances had gone by us
with wounded soldiers, we didn't care how soon we went in there. We
watched the infantry and artillery for another hour, as pretty a sight
as one often sees. It was so far away we could not see men fall, and it
was more like a celebration, until one got near enough to see the dead.
Presently the regimental bugle sounded "Boots and saddles," and in a
minute every man on the hill had rushed down to his tent, even before
the notes had died away from the bugle. Nothing was out of place. Every
soldier had known that the bugle _would_ sound sooner or later, and we
had everything ready. It did not seem five minutes before every company
was mounted, in its street, waiting for orders. Jim leaned over towards
me and said, "Hospital?" and I answered, "Not if I know myself," and I
patted my carbine on the stock. I said to him, "Six mule team?" and he
whispered back, "Nary six mule team for the old man." Then the bugle
sounded the "Assembly," and each company rode up on to the hill and
formed in regimental front facing the battle. Every eye was on the place
where the colonel had said we would probably "go in." There never was a
more beautiful sight, and every man in the cavalry regiment looked at
it till his eyes ached. Then came an order to dismount and every man was
ordered to tighten up his saddle girth as tight as the horse would bear
it, and be sure his stirrup straps were too short rather than too