They were of every nation nearly--Frenchmen, Irishmen,
Italians,--but one sentiment seemed to inspire them--hatred of our
friends over the way. From the moment in 1862, when at Barbee's they
raised the loud resounding _Marseillaise_, while fighting the enemy in
front and rear, to this fall of 1864, when they had strewed a hundred
battle-fields with dead men and horses, these "swarthy old hounds" of
the horse artillery had vindicated their claims to the admiration of
Stuart;--in the thunder of their guns, the dead chieftain had seemed
still to hurl his defiance at the invaders of Virginia.
Looking around me, I missed many of the old faces, sleeping now beneath
the sod. But Dominic, Antonio, and Rossini were still there--those
members of the old "Napoleon Detachment" of Pelham's old battery; there
still was Guillemot, the erect, military-looking Frenchman,--Guillemot,
with his hand raised to his cap, saluting me with the profoundest
respect; these were the faces I had seen a hundred times, and never any
thing but gay and full of fight.
Doubtless they remembered me, and thought of Stuart, as others had
done, at seeing me. They gave me a soldier's welcome; soon, from the
group around the camp-fire rose a song. Another followed, then another,
in the richest tenor; and the forests of Dinwiddie rang with the deep
voices, rising clear and sonorous in the moonlight night.
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