He replied it was more
dangerous to withdraw than to stand fast, and if they would give him
fifty veterans he would rather attempt the capture of the breastwork.
At this juncture Magruder, losing his horse as he galloped forward,
reached the road.
The ditch was crowded with soldiers; many wounded; many already dead;
many whose hearts had failed them. Beyond, on the narrow causeway,
the one gun which Jackson had brought across the ditch was still in
action.
Deserted by his gunners, and abandoned by the escort which had been
ordered to support him, the young subaltern still held his ground.
With the sole assistance of a sergeant, of stauncher mettle than the
rest, he was loading and firing his solitary field-piece, rejoicing,
as became the son of a warrior race, in the hot breath of battle, and
still more in the isolation of his perilous position. To stand alone,
in the forefront of the fight, defying the terrors from which others
shrank, was the situation which of all others he most coveted; and
under the walls of Chapultepec, answering shot for shot, and plying
sponge and handspike with desperate energy, the fierce instincts of
the soldier were fully gratified.
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