After
entering the Transit road, the rangers were sent ahead to discover if
there were an enemy in the way. Our regiment, as we called it, now
together for the first time since I joined it, consisted of some
seventy men, divided into three companies, all under command of Colonel
Waters,--a soldierly-looking man, and, moreover, brave, and not without
training in the Mexican War. Some time before the regiment had numbered
one hundred, but had become thus reduced by disease and the enemy.
On this ride I remember a feeble infusion of that excellent spirit
which, since the days of Sir Walter Scott, ought to belong to all
horse-soldiers, moss-troopers, or mounted rangers, but which I had
despaired of ever finding in General Walker's service. It is true we had
no bugler, or standard-bearer, or piece of feather in the troop, or,
indeed, any circumstance of war, save our revolvers and Sharpe's rifles,
vermin and dirty shirts. Nevertheless the morning was splendid, with a
fresh breeze behind us; the road was hard and smooth, and rang under
our horses' feet; and withal I felt, that, if we should see a troop
of greaser lancers ahead, in good uniform, we might run 'em down, and
bullet 'em, and strip 'em, with good romantic spirit, even.
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