Page:Journal history of the Twenty-ninth Ohio veteran volunteers, 1861-1865.djvu/54

 the mountains near, where some one hundred men of the different regiments of the Third brigade, with Colonel Buckley at their head, bivouacked for the night. The small remainder of the regiment, except those killed, wounded or captured, succeeded in reaching the main army. Captain Baldwin says that those who reached the main army of the Twenty-ninth regiment numbered only thirteen officers and men.

The night succeeding this eventful day of blood and carnage was spent amid the gloom and darkness of the forest. The men gathered about their brave commander as if to shield him from the damps of night, their thoughts turning meanwhile to the absent comrades, many of whom, how many they knew not, were lying, still and ghastly, upon the bloody field, a sacrifice to the incompetency of the general commanding. The day following, the little band began its weary march to the rear, seeking shelter at night in some unused furnace buildings. The next day they came in sight of the rear guard of the retreating army, where they found the small remnant of the Twenty-ninth, who had escaped death or capture, and who, when they saw their beloved colonel alive and well, fairly rent the very heavens above with their glad shouts of welcome.

The number of the Union army engaged in this battle was some twenty-five hundred, and could form but one line of battle, while Stonewall Jackson's official report shows his army to have numbered some thirty-four thousand. The Twenty-ninth regiment lost heavily in this battle. The aggregate was: Killed, 12; wounded, 33; captured, 105; total, 150.

After the battle the Twenty-ninth regiment moved down the valley to Luray, where the command encamped for a few days' rest, then forward to Front Royal, and on