Just after the Solothurn guns had retired, a body of troops was seen in the spot they had occupied. In the smoke and haze of the November day, it was not certain whether they were friend or foe. Corporal Pfiffer asked his captain’s permission to go and ascertain, which Mazzola willingly gave. Pfiffer left the battery, and went forward till he could see the others clearly; then, waving his sword, cried: “Fire, Captain; it is the enemy!” and made his way back. General Salis, who had taken up his position in the battery, pressed a piece of gold into his hand; but the sturdy Swiss rejected it, saying: “No need for that, General; I only did my duty.” The narrator of this story, himself a bitter partisan on the Catholic side, adds that Pfiffer was a well-known adherent of the Liberals. Here, as later in the American Civil War, when hostilities had once begun, men put the defence of their homes first, and let their private opinions wait for quieter times. The troops whose identity Corporal Pfiffer had ascertained were some battalions of Egloff’s and König’s brigades. These were Appenzellers under Benziger, and Aargauers under Häusler. The former could not face the storm of grape with which they were received, and took shelter in some gravel-pits. Häusler’s men, with whom the Brigadier-Colonel Egloff was himself riding, began in their turn to waver. At this moment Major Scherrer, whose own battalion was also unsteady, seized the colours, and fixing them into the ground, cried out: “Switzers, do you know what that means?” Thus encouraged, Häusler’s men held their ground, and, presently, through the personal efforts of Egloff and his staff, the fugitives were rallied, and the line restored. Meanwhile, the Lucerne and Unterwarden companies had pressed too far in the direction of the Rooterberg, allowing the Federal skirmishers to penetrate between them and the artillery, so that the earthworks were denuded of all covering infantry. Egloff at once ordered up three batteries, and under the fire of these, combined with that from others on the other bank, the intrepid Mazzola, after nearly an hour’s duel between his one battery and five or six of the enemy’s, was compelled to withdraw, and abandon Gislikon. General Salis, too, who had taken up his position in the battery, had been severely wounded in the temple by a grape-shot, though he made light of his wound, and refused to leave the fight.