Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1905-12-27
The Iron
} Brigade 4
81 A STORY OF THE ARMY q
n OF THE POTOMAC ~
By GEN. CHARLES KING
Author Of" Norman Holt, 1.-THE Colonel's
Daughter, Port Frayne." Etc.
Copyright. 1902. by G. w. billing ham Co.
CHAPTER XIX.-CoNrINUED.


In grove toward the Potomac,
backed by a ridge, Stuart's restless
horsemen and Pelham's ready guns are
lurking, hidden from our view. So are
the crouching guardians of the groves
and fields to the south. Again is the
great organizer showing his infantry
In to the attack of an army in posi-.
ton, over ground unsearched by cav
airy, though cavalry are with him in
abundance, eager to be of service but
he knows not how to use them. East
Of the big cornield, to their left front
as they march, is still another grove
the east wood, and in long, thin line,
at right angles to the pike, stretching
through the woods. through the corn
field, silently awaiting their coming
foe, are aligned the very men they
fought so savagely at sunset of that
August evening barely three weeks
back.
= And, just as before, not a man of the
hostile line is seen when the guns be-
gin the battle. Off to the left front,
near the east wood, southern battery
spies the blue battalions issuing from
the skirt of the northward wood nearly
mile away, dressed on their waving
colors, the skirmishers trotting well
out to the front. Then loud below the
guns and Shrek the shells as line upon
line, brigade upon brigade, Hooker
sends his new command, the newborn
First corps, in to it's bloody baptism
The confederate flank is covered by
Stuart and his dashing horse batteries,
and there is abundant room and more
than abundant need for similar troops
between Doubleday's right and the
river, but not so much as a squadron
rides where it may be of such infinite
service. Mcclellan holds his horses
east of the dividing stream, for again,
as on the peninsula, are his forces thus
bestowed
Full 500 yards, almost due south,
march the doubled lines in blue,
Meade's little division of Pennsylva-
mans alongside and east of Double
days. Hatch's old brigade is on the,
left of Gibbons, Patrick in its rear. in
support, and for time the Sixth Wis
consin, at the post of honor, has the
Hagerstown road on its right for
guide. But now comes a thin patch of
woods and turn-only slight turn
In the line of the pike, and here, little
by little, through pressure from the
center, the first company begins to
edge out over the highway, the second
follows, and by the time they are
bursting through the barnyards and
farm enclosures at Miller's, and the
shells have changed to shrapnel and
men are dropping fast, the entire right
wing of the Sixth is across the pike
and wading through that westward
field. Then up the pike, just as at
Gainesville, comes galloping battery
'B," and into the farmyard it turns,
and there, whirling the guns in line
to the south, delivers it's resonant an
swer. The Sixth is just striding out
from the cornfeld and into the woods
TO the west of the road when, sudden
as a thunderbolt, there bursts the
crash of an infantry volley, and from
front and right flank, so close that the
smoke jets forth in their faces, low
aimed lead storm shrieks through their
ranks and down goes half the wing
Then blaze the whole west wood and
the hedgerow south of the cornfield,
and all from an unseen foe! Flesh
and blood cannot stand such gale
I'm the open. The survivors swing back
to the highway, rallying instantly at
the edge of the field, and there, fiat
on their faces, they take vigorous hand
in the fight, while Patrick's men, close
at their heels, rush in to prolong the
Iine to the right and fill the gaps at
the front. Five minutes-and both
woods. east and west. and the inter
gening eornfelds are in dense clouds