Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/80

70 turn this order to General Jackson with the endorsement, ’The First Maryland refuses to face the enemy,' for I will not trust the honor of the glorious old State to discontented, dissatisfied men. I won't lead men who have no heart. Every man who is discontented must fall out of ranks step to the rear and march with the guard. If I can get ten good men, I'll take the Maryland colors with them and will stand for home and honor; but never again call yourselves Marylanders! No Marylander ever threw down his arms and deserted his colors in the presence of the enemy and those arms and those colors given you by a woman! Go!" This appeal settled it. The men in ranks cheered and yelled, "Forward, we'll show you!" The men under guard pleaded with tears to be allowed to return to duty, ran back miles to the wagons, got their guns and rejoined their regiment by the time it attacked at Front Royal. The Marylanders marched forward, rejuvenated, reinvigorated, restored! The army halted. As they went by they could hear time and again, "There they go. Look at the 'game cocks.'" The Louisiana brigade, Gen. Dick Taylor, came to a front and presented arms. The Marylanders trod on air, for no men are so susceptible to praise or enjoy flattery more.

Clear of the column, they debouched from the wooded road into the open, where there was a long stretch of fields between them and the village of Front Royal. A squad of cavalry charged down the road. Captain Nicholas and Company G were deployed as skirmishers on each side of it. A mile distant, by the side of a fence was a blanket stretched from two fence rails as a shelter. A man got up, looked at the strange sight coming out of the woods, sheltered his eyes from the sun, then made a grab for his musket, but before he could fire, the cavalry was on him, and that picket was gobbled up. There were three men on post, but they did not have time to give the alarm. A cavalry man, with cocked carbine,