40. Wise
to Lee, _Id_., vol. ii. p. 1012; vol. v. p. 769.] The contrast
between promise and performance in his case had been ludicrous. When
we entered the valley, we heard of his proclamations and orders,
which breathed the spirit of desperate hand-to-hand conflict. His
soldiers had been told to despise long-range fire-arms, and to trust
to bowie-knives, which our invading hordes would never dare to face.
We found some of these knives among the arms we captured at the
Gauley,--ferocious-looking weapons, made of broad files ground to a
double edge, fitted with rough handles, and still bearing the
cross-marking of the file on the flat sides. Such arms pointed many
a sarcasm among our soldiers, who had found it hard in the latter
part of our advance to get within even the longest musket-range of
the enemy's column. It was not strange that ignorant men should
think they might find use for weapons less serviceable than the
ancient Roman short-sword; but that, in the existing condition of
military science, officers could be found to share and to encourage
the delusion was amusing enough! With the muskets we captured, we
armed a regiment of loyal Virginians, and turned over the rest to
Governor Peirpoint for similar use.
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