Sergeant McKay nodded gravely at the Captain. “God be with you, Sir. Take care with yourself. We’ll hold the road.”
As they rode along the rear of the line of the cavalry, Jeremiah felt the excitement and tension crackling through the air, it was the same feeling as electricity building before a lightning storm broke over the mountains.
“Captain Lodge!”
Jeremiah looked to see where the call had come from and saw the grinning face of a Captain of the 1st New Jersey Cavalry. He couldn’t remember the man’s name, but he remembered the bottle of whisky they’d shared. The man continued. “You’re going to miss it if you keep on that road. This is the real thing. Not tearing up some tracks, or chasing guerrillas for once. Unless you Illinois boys don’t go in for this type of sport.”
With the unspoken challenge hanging in the air and the Jerseymen troopers watching expectantly, Jeremiah looked at the Lieutenant. “Colonel Kilpatrick said I should come ‘if I can spare myself’?”
“Yes, sir.”
“His full staff is ready to hand to relay orders?”
“Yes, Sir.” There was a crawling note under the Lieutenant’s voice, an eager and hopeful sound.
“I believe I may have another duty to attend here.” He turned his horse and pushed it into line with the troopers who nodded respectfully and made space. The Lieutenant pushed up beside him silently, smiling maniacally.
Hargrove, he remembered; the New York Captain’s name was Hargrove. “Captain Hargrove, do you know of a French General of Hussars named ‘Lasalle’?” He raised his voice enough to carry across the Jerseymen Cavalry.
Hargrove chuckled and answered in kind. “I believe I do, Jeremiah, I believe I do.”
“You remember what he said? ‘Tout hussard qui n’est pas mort à trente ans est un Jean-Foutre.’ Any hussar who isn’t dead by the age of thirty is a lazy bastard!”
Laughter and cheers answered from the troopers.
A shimmer of silver passed down the line as bugles sounded and the order to draw sabers was passed.
The order to charge was more felt than heard, a flash of chain lighting and madness that ripped along the Federal line in an instant.
There was a dreadful pause, a moment of death and silence, before the mass of troopers exploded outward across the field in a solid glorious line of blues and silver, flags snapping. The huzzahs of the Union cavalry sounded a chant that built-in tempo and volume, heard even over the thunder of hooves.
An answering flash of sabers from the Rebel line sparked and spread until it was a full crest of silver. The grey and butternut line seemed to take a breath then jump and surge forward all at once. A high pitched yell, like a fox hunters “halloo,” built and called in answer to the low Union paean.
The two lines collided in a confusing torrent of horses and men; screams, shots and the clash of steel drowning out all sanity and strategies.
Jeremiah drove his sword into the shoulder of a wild-eyed rebel in a pristine grey uniform and bright yellow kepi. A stumble of the horse had saved the man from Jeremiah’s thrust at his heart. In an instant they were past each other and Jeremiah was laying about himself with his saber as he was surrounded by a wall of gray and butternut uniforms. A revolver muzzle was thrust against his breast, but he twisted aside just as it fired; the bullet must have gone into one of the rebel soldiers around him. There was simply nowhere else for it to go.