"
At the same time that Mam' Sarah and Roberta were fussing over Polly, a
line of glittering points were coming up the rise near the bend of the
river. A column of Confederate soldiers appeared, marching shoulder to
shoulder, their arms shining in the morning sun. On they came, crossing
the fields with the springing step of hope and the steady step of high,
dauntless courage, making directly for the works the Federals had thrown
up and protected with the bodies of felled trees.
Well-nigh impregnable, those works, from their vast advantage of
position, but in their line of march it was the policy of their leaders to
fight every thing of like nature that came in the way, to hide, if
possible, their real weakness in numbers. So they were told to take those
works, and take them they would. Knowing not the hesitancy of doubt, nor
the trammels of fear, what recked they of danger or of death, as they
sprung to their work?
Alas! the awful death-trap that caught them, held them, while that deadly
fusilade opened upon them, reddened with their warm, young blood the soil
of their native State--mowed them down, ruthlessly, those hapless
Kentuckians.
Pages:
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47