The thin Union line before them offered another ragged volley. Several more men around Brown and Hazner dropped, but they continued to push forward and the Yankees broke, falling back, most turning to run along the towpath to the west.
The last few yards were covered, and Hazner, bent double with exhaustion, stood at the edge of the canal.
They had made it!
Pete Longstreet rode up, General Scales by his side, and quickly surveyed the ground. A half dozen abandoned barges were floating in the canal, a hundred or so Union casualties along the embankment.
Just below the canal was a short, open flood plain, and beyond the Potomac, on the other side, Virginia! Duvall had picked the spot well. A wooded island lay in the middle of the river, significantly shortening the distance they needed to traverse. On the far shore he spotted a couple of mounted troops, the men standing in their stirrups and waving. Mosby's men. He waved back. Virginia!
He turned to Scales.
'Keep pushing them back. I need an opening here at least two miles wide or more. Keep pushing them back. I will send you everyone I can, and you keep pushing out to form a bridgehead that we can move the pontoon bridge through.'
Scales saluted and rode off. Longstreet looked around at his staff.
'Venable, a courier to General Lee. Tell him we've seized a crossing point five miles west of Seneca. Second, a courier up our column to Cruickshank, and tell him to get those damn pontoons forward with all possible speed. The rest of you, as additional men come up, get them to work.'
He pointed to a nearby farm, a gristmill, some sheds, and outbuildings.
'Tear them apart. Get any lumber out that we can use for bridging material. Use the barges here to build a bridge across the canal. We need more than what is here and then a corduroy road down to the river. Now move it!'
Longstreet watched as the men set to work.
Maybe, just maybe, we've pulled it off. By tomorrow morning we will be across the river and be out of this damn state.
Near Poolesoille
3:00 P.M.
Cruickshank returned the salute of the officer who had come up. 'General Longstreet has seized a crossing point, sir.'
'Where?'
'About three miles from here, west of Seneca Crossing.' 'Damn all to hell,' Cruickshank said, shaking his head.
The courier looked at him confused.
'The general insists you come up with all possible speed to bring up the pontoons. I'm to guide you in.'
'All possible speed? Just what the hell do you think I've been doing all day?' Cruickshank asked.
'Sir, I'm just carrying orders.'
'Yes, I know.'
Ahead of him an artillery limber wagon had just lost a wheel, the load collapsing, again stalling traffic on the narrow, rutted road. The crew was struggling to jack the wagon up and replace the wheel, everything behind them stopped.
Cruickshank looked over at the courier.
'Got a drink on you.'
'Sir?'
'A drink. Bourbon, gin, anything?'
'I'm a temperance man,' the courier replied a bit stiffly.
'I bet you are, damn it.'
It took five minutes for the artillery crew to maneuver the wheel into place, secure the lug nut, and the piece lurched forward.
Behind him, with much cursing and swearing, his crew lashed their horses and mules, the twenty-four wagons again rolling forward, wheels sinking deep into the mud that still clung to the road down in hollows and stream crossings.
They edged up to an open field where the artillery crew had pulled over and unhitched their horses to let them graze while men hauled up buckets of water from a stream. An infantry regiment was resting by the side of the road, men sprawled in the damp grass, some taking down fence rails to make fires.
There was a distant rattling behind them and the less weary looked up, turning toward the north. Stuart, in spite of his injuries, was in the saddle, guarding the rear, trying to slow down the relentless advance of Grant. From the sound of gunfire the Yankees were only a couple of miles back.
'Keep it moving,' Cruickshank shouted, urging his exhausted teams on. 'Keep it moving.'
Darnestown, Maryland
3:15 P.M.
His men had covered nearly twenty-five miles since dawn. The militia had long since been left behind, but that did not worry him. The crossroads of this small village was just ahead. General Sykes reined in, shouting orders, the head of the column shaking out into line of battle.
To his right, a mile away, across open fields he could see them coming, red flags held high, shifting from column to line as well. It was a race to secure the village crossroads.
He rode across the front of the line, sword held high, trailed by his staff.
'Men of the Army of the Potomac!' he shouted. 'This is your time. This is your time to regain our honor!' A resounding cheer rose up, grim, determined. The battle line swept down toward the advancing foe.
Lee watched with field glasses raised, heart pounding. But an hour more and we could have been into this village, secured it, then turned south toward the Potomac, where surely Longstreet even now is securing a crossing place. And now this.
At the front of his column men were deploying out, the same men battered before Hauling Ferry the day before. There was no cheering now, no defiance. Only a grim silence as lines were formed, ramrods drawn, rifles loaded. One battery was up, unlimbered, opening with a salvo as the advancing blue wave closed to eight hundred yards.
The enemy charge came on, relentless, their cheers filled with a terrible anger.
More of his men were coming up, moving to either flank to broaden out their front, but the men moved slowly, without the elan of but three days past.
The enemy were six hundred yards off. Another volley from the guns, several striking the line, but the charge continued forward.
He drew back to a wooden knoll, staff gathered around him. No one spoke.
Four hundred yards, then three hundred. A regiment in the center raised rifles and fired, too soon he thought, others began to fire as well. Clouds of smoke billowed across the field, and still the charge came forward.
They were relentless, bayonets glistening, cheering madly, not as Union troops cheered in the past, the disciplined three hurrahs, but an almost guttural roar, a scream of rage. An officer on a white horse was in their middle, sword raised, pushing forward, other officers, mounted, joining in as well.
Two hundred yards, and then a hundred yards. They did not slow or waver. The massive blue wave broke into a run.
Several of his regiments presented and fired disciplined volleys. Scores of Yankees dropped, but the charge pressed in.
And then his men broke.
One or two turned at first, then dozens, and finally the entire line shattered apart, men streaming to the rear.
