CHAPTER VIII.
THE RETREAT.
The day was ours, nobly won with sweat and toil and blood, and the brave men who won it were thinking of the laurels so laboriously earned, when suddenly the entire scale was turned, and ere they knew what they were doing, the tired, jaded troops found themselves rushing headlong from the battle-field, never so much as casting a backward glance, but each striving to out-run the other, and so escape from they knew not what! How that panic happened no one can tell. Some charged it to the reckless conduct of a band of Regulars sent back for ammunition, and others upon the idle lookers on, the curious ones, who had come “to see the Rebels whipped,” and who at the first intimation of defeat joined in the general stampede, making the confusion worse, and adding great
