Read "A Lieutenant at Eighteen" by Oliver Optic online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Sergeant Knox had marched the platoon of dismounted cavalry to a position near the end of the road, in readiness to move to the assistance of the train escort, as ordered by Lieutenant Lyon, when he saw the enemy marching over the meadow towards the wagons. When Deck realized the havoc made by the sharpshooters in the ranks of the Confederate company, he suspended the command to move, and watched the flow of events from the woods. He saw the enemy on the meadow drop upon the ground, and those in the water remount their horses.
Leaving Life in command, with orders to move to the train if the enemy approached it, he made his way over to the point where he could obtain a better view of the troopers in the water. He found them wading in the stream, covered by their horses. Butters was a great horse-fancier, as well as a dead shot with his rifle, and had ordered his men by message along his line not to kill the animals if they could help it.