“Only a few more rounds, general!” pleaded Breathed; “I won’t lose the guns!” “All right!” As he spoke, the enemy rushed upon the single gun. Breathed replied by hurling canister in their faces. He sat his horse, unflinching. Never had I seen a more superb soldier. The enemy were nearly at the muzzle of the piece. “Surrender!” they were heard shouting; “surrender the gun!” Breathed’s response was a roar, which hurled back the front rank. Then, his form towering amid the smoke, his eyes flashing, his drawn sabre whirled above his head, Breathed shouted,-- “Limber up!” The cannoneers seized the trail; the horses wheeled at a gallop; the piece was limbered up; and the men rushed down the hill to mount their horses, left there. Then around the gun seemed to open a volcano of flame. The Federal infantry were right on it. A storm of bullets cut the air. The drivers leaped from the horses drawing the piece, thinking its capture inevitable, and ran down the hill. In an instant they had disappeared. The piece seemed in the hands of the enemy--indeed, they were almost touching it--a gun of the Stuart horse artillery for the first time was to be captured! That thought seemed to turn Breathed into a giant. As the drivers disappeared, his own horse was shot under him, staggered, sunk, and rolled upon his rider. Breathed dragged himself from beneath the bleeding animal, rose to his feet, and rushing to the lead horses of the gun, leaped upon one of them, and struck them violently with his sabre to force them on. As he did so, the horse upon which he was mounted fell, pierced by a bullet through the body. Breathed fell upon his feet, and, with the edge of his sabre, cut the two leaders out of the traces. He then leaped upon one of the middle horses--the gun being drawn by six--and started off. He had not gone three paces, when the animal which he now rode fell dead in turn. Breathed rolled upon the ground, but rising to his feet, severed the dead animal and his companion from the piece, as he had done the leaders. He then leaped upon one of the wheel-horses--these alone being now left--struck them furiously with his sabre--started at a thundering gallop down the hill--and pursued by a hail-storm of bullets, from which, as General Lee says in his report, “he miraculously escaped unharmed,” carried off the gun in safety, and rejoined the cavalry, greeted by a rolling thunder of cheers. Such was the manner in which Breathed fought his artillery, and the narrative is the barest and most simple statement of fact. Breathed came out of the war a lieutenant-colonel only. Napoleon would have made him a marshal. XXXIV. MY LAST RIDE WITH STUART. More than one stirring incident marked those days of desperate fighting, when, barricading all the roads, and charging recklessly, Stuart opposed, at every step, Grant’s advance toward the Po.