[444] speed in their legs, the fugutives of the fray are still pursued by threatening echoes. The road becomes populous with them; their tales of horror infuse a contagious uncertainty among officers and orderlies, galloping to front and rear. The ponderous rumor of countless hordes of rebels pouring around our right flank and already coming up the road is swung from mouth to mouth, until it smites the ears of the teamsters of the Sixth corps wagon train, parked near Wilderness Tavern. And now! Was ever a panic like this that lays hold on the souls of these teamsters, and causes an abandonment of suppers and hot coffee, cooking over a hundred fires, and sets the lungs of stalwart men to cursing, and their hands to cruelly plying whips, and the heels of a host of mules, and the wheels of a hundred lumbering wagons rattling and clattering, heaven knows where! There are some men who see through all this easily enough, and have the truth out of it in a few moments' time. Away down the plank-road, right in the faces of the fugitives coming out of the woods, a bonfire has been lighted. A band behind it is playing “Yankee Doodle,” and the stampeders are then called upon to rally. In less than half an hour quite a company is got together by this means, and got back to the ranks of the Sixth corps, again firm, advanced, and unmolested, in the Wilderness. This break might have been a severe thing had the enemy been fully aware of his advantages, but he evidently was not, as he did not push them; as it was, Generals Shaler and Seymour, with the greater part of their commands, were taken prisoners. In the afternoon, previous to the evening on which this misfortune occurred, a number of colored regiments, of General Ferrero's command, belonging to Burnside's corps, were sent into the woods in rear of, and between the right of the Sixth corps and the river. What those troops were doing, or where they were, when the flank movement of the enemy above described was in progress, I cannot tell.
[444] speed in their legs, the fugutives of the fray are still pursued by threatening echoes. The road becomes populous with them; their tales of horror infuse a contagious uncertainty among officers and orderlies, galloping to front and rear. The ponderous rumor of countless hordes of rebels pouring around our right flank and already coming up the road is swung from mouth to mouth, until it smites the ears of the teamsters of the Sixth corps wagon train, parked near Wilderness Tavern. And now! Was ever a panic like this that lays hold on the souls of these teamsters, and causes an abandonment of suppers and hot coffee, cooking over a hundred fires, and sets the lungs of stalwart men to cursing, and their hands to cruelly plying whips, and the heels of a host of mules, and the wheels of a hundred lumbering wagons rattling and clattering, heaven knows where! There are some men who see through all this easily enough, and have the truth out of it in a few moments' time. Away down the plank-road, right in the faces of the fugitives coming out of the woods, a bonfire has been lighted. A band behind it is playing “Yankee Doodle,” and the stampeders are then called upon to rally. In less than half an hour quite a company is got together by this means, and got back to the ranks of the Sixth corps, again firm, advanced, and unmolested, in the Wilderness. This break might have been a severe thing had the enemy been fully aware of his advantages, but he evidently was not, as he did not push them; as it was, Generals Shaler and Seymour, with the greater part of their commands, were taken prisoners. In the afternoon, previous to the evening on which this misfortune occurred, a number of colored regiments, of General Ferrero's command, belonging to Burnside's corps, were sent into the woods in rear of, and between the right of the Sixth corps and the river. What those troops were doing, or where they were, when the flank movement of the enemy above described was in progress, I cannot tell.
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