"Major Keenan," shouted General Pleasonton, "how many men have you got?" "Three hundred, General," replied Keenan, quietly. "Major," said the general, low and earnestly, riding up to him, "we must have ten minutes to save the Army of the Potomac. Charge the Confederate advance and hold them!" Keenan never hesitated. When the Six Hundred charged at Balaclava, some of them came back from the bite of the Russian sabres and the roar of the Muscovite guns. When Pickett made that desperate, fatal charge at Gettysburg, there was still a chance to retreat, but Major Keenan knew that when three hundred cavalry met the fixed bayonets of thirty thousand infantry on a narrow road, not one would ever return. It was not a splendid charge which might mean laurels of victory, but a hopeless going to death, the buying of ten minutes of time with the lives of three hundred men, yet neither Keenan nor his men questioned the price nor flinched at the order. The sunlight of the last day he was to see on earth caught the gleam of his uplifted sabre as he gave the quick, sharp command to charge. He flung his cap into the bushes, bent his head and rode bareheaded in front of his flying column and then like an avalanche, like a hurricane of horse, he and his three hundred men thundered down the narrow road. Just around the curve, with a crash that broke the necks of a score of the leading horses, this charging column hurled themselves against the astonished, packed ranks of infantry rushing on with fixed bayonets. For five, for ten, for fifteen minutes horses rose and fell to the clashing of dripping sabres and the bark of revolvers thrust into the faces of the oncoming foemen. For fifteen long minutes there was a swirl and a flurry which held back the head of the charging forces and then shattered by volley after volley of musketry and pierced by thousands of charging bayonets, horse and men alike went down. Not one ever came back. Keenan and his Three Hundred had bought the ten minutes and had thrown in five more for good measure and the price was paid. The head of the Confederate column reformed, passed over and by the struggling horses and the silent, mangled men and then again swept on around the bend and down the road toward the fords crowded with a hundred thousand helpless, escaping soldiers. General Pleasonton, however, had made good use of those precious moments. As the Confederate column came around the curve, they were met by a hell of grape and canister from the batteries which at last had been mounted in position. Right into their front roared the guns and the road was a shamble of writhing, struggling, dying men. No army ever marched that could stand up against the grim storm of death that swept down that road and in a moment the Confederate forces broke and rushed back for shelter. The Army of the Potomac was saved. Bought at a great price, it was yet to be hammered and forged and welded under a great leader into