Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/213

 speech, in which he set forth the need of discipline and obedience, and then the march began. About half an hour after our start one of our horsemen, who had remained behind, came up at a gallop with the report that the dragoons, then garrisoned in Bonn, were at our heels, to attack us. This report should have surprised nobody, for during the day and the evening the preparations for our enterprise had been carried on so openly that it would have been astonishing had the authorities received no knowledge of it, and had they not taken measures to frustrate the expedition. Moreover, we had forgotten to make the ferry behind us unserviceable. Nevertheless the announcement of the approach of the dragoons produced in our ranks considerable consternation. Anneke ordered our horsemen to hasten back and to reconnoiter as to the nearness and strength of our pursuers. Meanwhile our march was accelerated so that we might possibly reach the River Sieg and cross it before the arrival of the dragoons; but in this we failed. Long before we approached the river, we heard not far behind us the trumpet-signal ordering the dragoons to trot their horses. Anneke, who evidently was not very confident of the ability of his men to face regular soldiers in a fight, halted our column and told us that we were evidently not in a condition to offer successful resistance to regular troops; we should therefore disperse, and if we wanted to make ourselves further useful to the cause of the fatherland, we might find our way to Elberfeld or to the Palatinate, where he was ready to go. This signal to disperse was at once obeyed. Most of the men scattered over the surrounding cornfields, while some of us, perhaps twenty, stood still by the side of the road. The dragoons quietly passed us at a trot on their way to Siegburg. There were only some thirty of them, not enough therefore to overcome us or even to force their way through on the road,