s left. This was Major and Mouton feeling their way to the Union
right, beyond which and diagonally across the front ran the road
that leads from Mansfield to Bayou Pierre.

Whether Taylor, as he says, now became impatient at the delay and
ordered Mouton to open the attack, or whether, as others have
asserted, Mouton attacked without the knowledge or orders of Taylor,
is not quite clear, nor is it here material. About four o'clock,
when the two lines had looked at each other for two hours or more,
Taylor suddenly delivered his attack by a vigorous charge of Mouton's
division on the east of the road. Ransom's infantry on the field
numbered about 2,400 officers and men; including Lucas, Banks's
fighting line fell below 3,500, and the whole force he had at hand
was not above 5,000 strong. Against this, Taylor was now advancing
with nearly 10,000. It was therefore inevitable that on both flanks
his line must widely overlap that of Banks as soon as the two should
meet.

When Ransom perceived Mouton's movement, he threw forward his right
to meet it with such spirit that Mouton's first line was driven
back in confusion on his second; then rallying and returning to
the charge, Mouton's men halted, lay down, and began firing at
about two hundred yards' range. The two batteries of Landram's
division, Cone's Chicago Mercantile, and Klauss's 1st Indiana, now
came on the field, and were posted by Ransom on the ridge near the
centre, to oppose the enemy's advance on the left, before which
Dudley's men were already falling back. Bee and Walker had in fact
turned the whole left flank, and were rapidly moving on, breaking
in the line as they advanced. This soon left Nims's guns without
support, and at the same time Klauss and Cone came under a fire so
severe from Walker's men, that Ransom determined to withdraw to
the cover of the wood in his rear at the edge of the clearing.
Unfortunately, Captain Dickey, his assistant adjutant-general, fell
mortally wounded in the act of communicating these orders, and thus
some of the regiments farther toward the right, being without
orders, and fighting stubbornly against great odds, stood their
ground until they were completely surrounded and taken prisoners.
While aiding Landram to rally and reform the remnants of his division
in the skirt of timber, Ransom was severely wounded in the knee,
and had to be carried off the field. Vance and Emerson were wounded
and taken prisoners, each at