The Northern Volunteers.
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��ill battle, I should not name impetu- osity, because, whether it was due to the caution of our generals or the coldness of our temperament, this quality was not conspicuous in our actions ; but I should say steadfast- ness and tenacity. Their steadfast- ness was proven times without num- ber in the battles fought in the obscurity of the Southern forests. The general, unable to see either the enemy or his own men, had to depend upon the ranks to stay where he placed them until the din of arms could guide him to the point of at- tack. The men, in their turn, had to meet an unseen foe, and fight the battle upon the faith that their flanks were covered, and that aid would come when needed. This trait averted panics. No surprise, no flight of any part of the army, ever brought on a general rout.
At White Oak Swamp, in June, 1862, 20,000 of our men, pursuing the march in retreat which had been or- dered by McClellan, crossed the bridge in the night, and threw themselves down upon the plain above to sleep after a wearv nio;ht march. Contrary to all military rules, they were massed thickly, with no attempt at forming a line of battle to face the enemy who was following. The men gave them- selves no thought as to whether their generals had reason for halting them in the confused order in which they lay, but fell asleep behind their stacks of arms. The fiery Jackson, fresh from the victory at Gaines Mill, came silently to the bluff on the other side of the swamp, and, without warning, opened fire upon the sleeping host with twenty-eight cannon. The men, awakened by the roar of cannon and
��the explosion of shells amid them, sprang into the ranks and seized their guns, and waited for the command of their officers. Solid shot tore through- the mass, and bursting shells buried their deadly fragments everywhere. The uproar was appalling, and, to provoke disorder, a wild flight of pontoon and l)aggage teams swept across the plain, trampling down everything before them. But at the command, the many crowded columns swiftly deployed into lines, facing the enemy's skirmishers, made ready to meet his advance ; batteries whirled to the front and opened fire, and when Jackson, eager to press for- ward, attempted to push his infantry against us, he found, instead of a disordered mass demoralized by the iron hail from his batteries, a succes- sion of well ordered lines of battle, the first of which alone was sufficient to repel his attack. It was steadfast- ness of the most exalted tvpe that preserved our men from panic that day.
At Chancellors ville the 11th corps was routed as evening came on, and thousands streamed back to, and' even through, the other lines ; but these lines were undisturbed, and Berry's division advanced right into the gap left by the beaten corps and into the darkness of the night which had come on, and, moving steadily on against their invisible foe, opened fire upon them with a regular and thundering roll of musketry which lighted the field of battle like a sheet of lightning, and stopped the onset of the enemy.
At Fisher's Hill, when half of Sheridan's army was routed in his absence, the other half kept a good
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