removal from Harrison's Landing and the
disastrous fights of Pope's campaign; but there was little opportunity,
indeed, for dash amid demoralization. And so matters passed rapidly on
until the morning of Antietam. One of the captains of General
Pleasanton's cavalry fell at Sharpsburg, leaving a vacancy which that
gallant officer filled, by General Hooker's consent, with his volunteer
aid-de-camp. Mary Crawford's cavalry sabre had at last found its true
field, though he had worn it through all, instead of the more showy
regulation blade, when on staff duty.

Antietam had begun to thunder, though the height of that terrible
battle, which up to this time[19] divides with Malvern Hill and Shiloh
the fearful honor of being the most destructive of any fought on the
American continent, had not yet been reached. One hundred and twenty
thousand of the Union troops held the eastern bank of Antietam Creek,
ready to cross and complete the expulsion of the rebels from Maryland,
while it was believed that not less than two hundred thousand of the
rebels held the high lands opposite. The slaughter of the day was fairly
commencing. Pleasanton held the upper of the three bridges over the
Creek, that at the Hagerstown road, over which Hooker was sweeping
forward to make his crossing. He had been ordered by Hooker to hold his
position without fail and at all hazards. The rebels seemed to be in
heavy force on the heights behind and farther up the creek, and
evidently they were prepared to make a desperate resistance to the
crossing of Hooker. The position of the cavalry was a painful one.
Hooker seemed slow in coming, and shot and shell kept continually
dropping among them, knocking from their saddles one and another of the
brave fellows who were so chafing with impatience and inaction. At
length, and just at the moment when the head of Hooker's column appeared
from behind the woods on the other side, a squadron of rebel horse, two
or three hundred strong, came into view, down the creek and a little
behind, on a low plateau which stretched from it towards the hills. The
advance guard came pricking in at the same moment. Pleasanton, who had
been anxiously observing the advance of Hooker, caught a word behind him
and turned. As he did so, and saw the rebel cavalry, he caught the word
repeated.

"Damnation!"

"Who spoke?" asked the General.

"I!" answered Captain Crawford, commanding the right company, and
consequently very near the comm