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[248] Bee and Bartow had been killed near the Henry house; Hampton was wounded; most of the colonels were disabled; Beauregard and Jackson had been both slightly wounded while putting themselves at the head of their soldiers to bring them back into line; the Confederate artillery had suffered cruelly; many of their guns had been dismounted, and the officers themselves were obliged to take the places of those who had served the other pieces. The general-in-chief had not a single fresh regiment at his disposal; Ewell and Bonham had not yet had time to arrive, while Early, whom he had summoned to the field of battle at eleven o'clock in the morning, had not yet made his appearance. At this moment Howard recommenced the attack. The Confederate general was watching him anxiously when he perceived in the prolongation of the Federal lines a great cloud of dust rising above the tree-tops. It was evidently a body of troops which, not having yet taken part in the conflict, was coming to decide, by its intervention, the issue of the battle. To which of the two armies did it belong? Its position led Beauregard to believe for an instant that they were the heads of Patterson's column coming from the Valley of Virginia, and he was already preparing to cover his retreat, which seemed inevitable, when he thought he recognized friendly colors in the flags that were floating in the breeze. A moment after, sudden discharges of musketry informed him that these troops brought him victory. They were in fact the 3000 soldiers of the army of the Shenandoah for which he had been impatiently looking since morning, Bee's brigade of that army having alone arrived during the night. Johnston, who had gone to the rear of the army to hurry forward and organize the reinforcements, had conceived the happy idea of stopping the trains which brought over those troops at the nearest point of the field of battle, and of forming them into regiments on the spot as fast as they landed. This precaution was the much more timely as the Federals were only within three kilometres of the road, and might succeed in cutting it. Johnston, leading his soldiers in person, had brought them through the woods which extend westward of the Sudeley road, on which the Federals confidently rested their extreme right. Without waiting
Philadelphia, Jos. H. Coates and co., 1876.
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