saster.
Already, by holding so stiffly to his first position, in the front
line, in the road, Nims had lost more than half his horses, and
thus in quitting the field he found himself compelled to abandon
three of his guns; yet not until he had inflicted vast injuries on
his enemy, and to the last furnished a noble example of coolness
in the performance of duty and the highest courage in the hour of
trial. Now the remnant of this fine battery was swallowed up in
the wreck of the wagons, and soon fourteen more guns went to swell
the ruin. Thus Rails and Rottaken lost each a section, Cone and
Klauss their whole batteries. In all twenty guns were lost; three
on the field and seventeen at the jam. With them went 175 wagons,
11 ambulances, and 1,001 draught animals. To pass the obstruction
the infantry had to turn widely out of the road and for a long
distance push their way through the woods. No semblance of order
survived. After this there was only one mass of men, wagons, and
horses crowding to the rear.

How little expectation there had been of fighting a battle that
day, especially on the line where the extreme outposts chanced to
be, and how suddenly all was changed, is aptly shown by what was
happening in Emory's camp when, at a quarter before four o'clock,
he received Franklin's order to go to the front. The wagons of
the Thirteenth Corps were in the road in the act of passing the
lines of the Nineteenth Corps on the way to join their proper
command. Emory's wagons had been with him for some little time
and several of the quartermasters were even engaged in issuing
clothing when the summons came. There had been no heavy firing as
yet, such as indicates a battle, and the exact degree of urgency
may be best represented by saying that the marching orders were
delivered to Emory in writing by a mounted orderly and were in
these words: "Move your infantry immediately to the front, leaving
one regiment as guard to your batteries and train. If your train
has got up, you will take two days' rations and the cooking utensils."
The language of this order, which may fairly be taken as an authentic
reflection of the oral message from Banks, on which it was directly
based, would have justified Emory in taking an hour or more for
the issue of the rations; but Emory, whose nature it was to forecast
danger, had from the first hour of the campaign been apprehensive
of some sudden attack that should find the army unprepare