Peel sent an eight-inch shell through the window of the toll-house which burst under the enemy's big gun in that building, upsetting it and killing or disabling most of the rebel gunners. Campbell's main body came up, and under cover of a heavy artillery fire which soon silenced the hostile guns, the passage of the river was accomplished. The Fifty-Third regiment had been lying for hours under the bank of a road which afforded inadequate cover, and had lost a good many men. It was comprised chiefly of Irishmen,--fine stalwart fellows and ever keen for fighting, but somewhat difficult to keep in hand when their blood was up. When the main body began to cross, the Fifty-Third conceived the idea that they were to be relieved; and this suspicion, coupled with glimpses of the enemy attempting to withdraw some of their guns, overmastered their sense of discipline. All of a sudden, and in spite of the attempts to restrain them, they made a dash with loud cheers and charged and captured several of the rebel guns. Sir Colin had intended to make a waiting fight of it, to give plenty of time for the cavalry turning movement; when the hot-headed Irishmen interfered with this project he galloped up to the regiment in high wrath and objurgated it in terms of extreme potency. But each volley of his invective was drowned by repeated shouts of "Three cheers for the Commander-in-Chief, boys!" until, finding that the men were determined not to give him a hearing, the sternness of the commander gradually relaxed and the veteran turned away with a laugh. He might have made his voice heard over the cheery clamour of the Irishmen, but that a few minutes before he had been hit in the stomach by a spent bullet, happily with merely the momentary inconvenience of loss of breath.