on the watch, and
these came in constantly with the information, which was duly
transmitted to Howard, that Jackson was actually coming. Schurz
also became uneasy and sent out parties to reconnoitre. General
Noble, at that time Colonel of the Seventeenth Connecticut Infantry,
two companies of whose regiment were on the picket line there,
writes as follows: "The disaster resulted from Howard's and Devens'
utter disregard and inattention under warnings that came in from
the front and flank all through the day. Horseman after horseman
rode into my post and was sent to headquarters with the information
that the enemy were heavily marching along our front and proceeding
to our right; and last of all an officer reported the rebels massing
for attack. Howard scouted the report and insulted the informants,
charging them with telling a story that was the offspring of their
imaginations or their fears."

If this be true, there has been but one similar case in our annals,
and that was the massacre of the garrison of Fort Sims, by the
savages, in 1813, near Mobile, Alabama; soon after a negro had been
severely flogged by the commanding officer for reporting that he
had seen Indians lurking around the post.

Adjutant Wilkenson, of the same regiment, confirms General Noble's
statement and says, "Why a stronger force was not sent out as
skirmishers and the left of our line changed to front the foe is
more than I am able to understand."

General Schimmelpfennig, commanding a brigade of Schurz's division,
says he sent out a reconnoissance and reported the hostile movements
fully two hours before the enemy charged.

The Germans were bitterly denounced for this catastrophe, I think
very unjustly, for in the first place less than one-half the Eleventh
Corps were Germans, and in the second place the troops that did
form line and temporarily stop Jackson's advance were Germans;
principally Colonel Adolph Buschbeck's brigade of Steinwehr's
division, aided by a few regiments of Schurz's division, who gave
a volley or two. Buschbeck held a weak intrenched line perpendicular
to the plank road for three-quarters of an hor, with artillery on
the right, losing one-third of his force. His enemy then folded
around his flanks and took him in reverse, when further resistance
became hopeless and his men retreated in good order to the rear of
Sickles' line at Hazel Grove where they supported the artillery
and offered to lead a bayonet charg