my guns! And
my ammunition out, and half my horses down--and if General Bee sent me
orders to move I never got them!" He stamped upon the ground, wiping the
blood from a wound in his head. "_I_ couldn't hold the Henry Hill! _I_
couldn't fight McDowell with one battery--no, by God, not even if 't was
the Staunton Artillery! We had to move out."

Jackson eyed him, unmollified. "I have never seen the occasion, Captain
Imboden, that justified profanity. As for support--I will support your
battery. Unlimber right here."

Imboden unlimbered, placing his guns below the pine wood upon the
summit. The First Brigade wheeled into line to the left. Here it was met
by an aide. "General Jackson, hold your troops in reserve until Bee and
Bartow need support--then give it to them!" The First Brigade deployed
in the wood. About the men was still the pine thicket, blazed upon by
the sun, shrilled in by winged legions; before them was the field of
Bull Run. A tableland, cut by gullies, furred with knots of pine and
oak, held in the middle a flower garden, a few locust trees, and a small
house--the Henry House--in which, too old and ill to be borne away to
safety, lay a withered woman, awaiting death. Beyond the house the
ground fell sharply. At the foot of the hill ran the road, and beyond
the road were the marshy banks of a little stream, and on the other side
of the stream rose the Mathews Hill. Ranged upon this height Ricketts
and Griffin and Arnold and many another Federal battery were sending
shrieking shells against the Henry Hill. North and east and west of the
batteries ran long radii of blue, pointed with bright banners, and out
of the hollow between the hills came a smoke and noise as of the
nethermost pit. There, beneath that sulphurous cloud, the North and the
South were locked in an embrace that was not of love.

CHAPTER VIII

A CHRISTENING

Imboden had been joined by the Rockbridge Artillery and the Alexandria
and Loudoun batteries. A little later there came up two of the New
Orleans guns. All unlimbered in front of the pine wood where was couched
the First Brigade, trained the sixteen guns upon the Mathews Hill and
began firing. Griffin and Ricketts and Arnold answered with Parrotts and
howitzers, throwing elongated, cylindrical shell that came with the
screech of a banshee. But the Federal range was too long, and the fuses
of many shells were uncut. Two of Rockbridge's horses were killed, a
caisson of Stanard