Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/419

 Between four and five o'clock we heard the booming of artillery in the direction of Cedar Mountain. It was the expected battle between Banks on our, and Stonewall Jackson on the Confederate side, and we were to hasten to the support of Banks. We had hardly marched two miles from our resting place when we met a number of straggling fugitives from the battlefield, who told us gruesome stories about “terrible slaughter,” about “Banks's army having been all cut to pieces,” and about the rebels being “close on their heels in hot pursuit.” We tried to stop and rally the runaways, but with small success. A regiment with its colors and a number of officers came on in an evidently demoralized condition, but still maintaining something like order. There were, however, only some two or three hundred men in its ranks. The officer commanding it said that the battle was lost, that they had been overwhelmed and driven from the field by vastly superior numbers, and that he was without orders. Seeing our troops marching on in good shape, he seemed to take heart and stopped his hasty retreat. We learned that General Sigel, who was ahead of us with the advanced guard, General Milroy's brigade, had also succeeded in gathering up some of the dispersed troops and especially two batteries of artillery in full retreat, the commanders of which willingly placed themselves under General Sigel's orders. When we had caught up with General Sigel, the cannonading still going on, he put General Schenck's and my division in position, but the rebels ceased their attacks, and the fight stopped without our becoming actively engaged.

General Banks had indeed been badly beaten after a gallant struggle against a hostile army outnumbering him four to one, but the victorious Jackson, becoming aware of the strong reinforcements massing against him, withdrew across the Rapidan. On the 11th we had a day's truce between the