Loudoun, Alexandria, and New Orleans
took up the cry, tossed it with grape and canister across to the
opposite hill. Bee, Bartow, and Evans, exhausted, shattered, wavering
upwards toward the forest, rest, cessation from long struggle, heard the
names and took fresh heart. The two were not idle, but in the crucial
moment turned the scale. Black danger hemmed their cause. The missing
brigade of the Shenandoah was no man knew where. At Mitchell's and
Blackburn's fords, Ewell, D. R. Jones, Bonham, and Longstreet were
engaged in a demonstration in force, retaining upon that front the
enemy's reserve. Holmes and Jubal Early were on their way to the
imperilled left, but the dust cloud that they raised was yet distant.
Below the two generals were broken troops, men raw to the field,
repulsed, driven, bleeding, and haggard, full on the edge of headlong
flight; lower, in the hollow land, McDowell's advance, filling the
little valley, islanding the two fighting legions, and now, a mounting
tide, attacking the Henry Hill. At Beauregard's order the regimental
colours were advanced, and the men adjured to rally about them. Fiery,
eloquent, of French descent and impassioned, Pierre Gustave Toutant
Beauregard rose in his stirrups and talked of _la gloire_, of home, and
of country. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana listened,
cheered, and began to reform. Johnston, Scotch, correct, military, the
Regular in person, trusted to the hilt by the men he led, seized the
colours of the 4th Alabama, raised them above his grey head, spurred his
war horse, and in the hail of shot and shell established the line of
battle. Decimated as they were, raw volunteers as they were, drawn from
peaceful ways to meet the purple dragon, fold on fold of war, the troops
of Bee, Bartow, and Evans rallied, fell into line, and stood. The 49th
Virginia came upon the plateau from Lewis Ford--at its head Ex-Governor
William Smith. "Extra Billy," old political hero, sat twisted in his
saddle, and addressed his regiment. "Now, boys, you've just got to kill
the ox for this barbecue! Now, mind you, I ain't going to have any
backing out! We ain't West P'inters, but, thank the Lord, we're men!
When it's all over we'll have a torchlight procession and write to the
girls! Now, boys, you be good to me, and I'll be good to you. Lord,
children, I want to be proud of you! And I ain't Regular, but I know
Old Virginny. Tom Scott, you beat the drum real loud, and James, you