Fontain was now in a safe region. His borrowed horse carried him to Raymond by two o'clock the next morning, and was here changed for a fresh one, which enabled him to reach Jackson during the forenoon. Here he delivered his despatch to General Johnston, having successfully performed a feat which, in view of its difficulties and his physical disability, may well be classed as phenomenal. _GORDON AND THE BAYONET CHARGE AT ANTIETAM._ In the opening chapter of General John B. Gordon's interesting "Reminiscences of the Civil War" he tells us that the bayonet, so far as he knew, was very rarely used in that war, and never effectively. The bayonet, the lineal descendant of the lance and spear of far-past warfare, had done remarkable service in its day, but with the advent of the modern rifle its day ended, except as a weapon useful in repelling cavalry charges or defending hollow squares. Fearful as their glittering and bristling points appeared when levelled in front of a charging line, bayonets were rarely reddened with the blood of an enemy in the Civil War, and the soldiers of that desperate conflict found them more useful as tools in the rapid throwing up of light earthworks than as weapons for use against their foes. Later in his work Gordon gives a case in point, in his vivid description of a bayonet charge upon the line under his command on the bloody field of Antietam. This is well worth repeating as an illustration of the modern ineffectiveness of the bayonet, and also as a story of thrilling interest in itself. As related by Gordon, there are few incidents in the war which surpass it in picturesqueness and vitality. The battle of Antietam was a struggle unsurpassed for its desperate and deadly fierceness in the whole war, the losses, in comparison with the numbers engaged, being the greatest of any battle-field of the conflict. The plain in which it was fought was literally bathed in blood. It is not our purpose to describe this battle, but simply that portion of it in which General Gordon's troops were engaged. For hour after hour a desperate struggle continued on the left of Lee's lines, in which charge and counter-charge succeeded each other, until the green corn which had waved there looked as if had been showered upon by a rain of blood. But during those hours of death not a shot had been fired upon the centre. Here General Gordon's men held the most advanced position, and were without a supporting line, their post being one of imminent danger in case of an assault in force.