Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 38.djvu/289

Rh strain. And yet we believe the order was given just as Colonel Cummings repeats it, and that General Jackson meant it to be carried out. Had the order been given to him as a private in .the ranks, he would have withheld his fire until the enemy had come exactly within thirty paces, and then if his life had been spared we know what would have occurred. As a matter of fact, when the line of Federal infantry appeared just over the ridge of the gentle hill on which Griffin's battery was coming into position, the riflemen of the 33d could no longer restrain their impatience, and Colonel Cummings, feeling that the critical moment had come, and seeing the futility of attempting to obey the "thirty paces" order, rang out the order "Charge," and the little battalion broke from its cover and rushed fiercely upon the astonished enemy. Griffin's battery was captured; at the first fire it was utterly disabled, the writer, before being wounded, getting close enough to see the splendid horses dying in heaps, and the gunners strewn dead or helpless among the guns. As we Americans have for months been regaled with newspaper accounts of the terrible slaughter at Santiago, it may be of interest to state that in that and the succeeding charges made by the 33d (for although repulsed this raw regiment made three efforts to hold the battery, and with the splendid assistance of their comrades, succeeded in the last), out of about four hundred and fifty men it lost forty-three killed and one hundred and forty wounded. It may be late in the day to make the claim, but we believe it can be demonstrated that this pardonable breach of orders by Colonel Cummings, this impulsive and uncontrollable rush of his green boys, not a month from the plough and the shop of the mechanic, was the first check the Federal advance had met, and was the turning point in the battle. Colonel Henderson refers to the respite given to the Confederates as McDowell advanced his batteries, with their supporting infantry from the hills beyond the Warrenton turnpike, from which he had driven Bee and Evans to the next ridge, on which stood the Henry and Robinson houses. And it is undoubtedly true that the momentum of the Federal advance was somewhat lost by this most natural movement. But before it could be regained, before the deadly batteries of Griffin and Ricketts could resume their destructive work, just in the nick