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[123] regiment, to fill this gap, and well did they carry out their instructions. General McLaws' division from Harper's Ferry entered coincidently with Walker at 10:30.1

The second stage of the battle has now been reached. Hooker has retired and Mansfield has been brought to a stand. Jackson, worn and exhausted, has retired. Hood's brigade has been so cut to pieces that when its dauntless commander was asked, ‘Where is your division?’ he answered, ‘Dead on the field.’ D. H. Hill's three brigades have been drawn in, and only a small force guards the Confederate left. At this moment General Sumner marched against the Confederates with the Second corps of three divisions. General Sumner, as quoted by Longstreet, thus described the field when he advanced: ‘On going on the field, I found that General Hooker's corps had been dispersed and routed. I passed him some distance in the rear, where he had been carried wounded, but I saw nothing of his corps at all, as I was advancing with my command on the field. There were some troops lying down on the left which I took to belong to Mansfield's command. In the meantime, General Mansfield had been killed, and a portion of his corps (formerly Banks') had also been thrown into confusion.’ Sedgwick, of Sumner, was in the lead, and his three brigades moved toward the Dunker church and left it a little to their left. Just then there were not enough Confederates in his front to stop a brigade, but Walker, as seen above, was just arriving and McLaws was supporting him, and Early made splendid use of his brigade. Walker at the head of his six North Carolina regiments and two others, ‘charged headlong,’ says Gen. J. D. Cox, who commanded the extreme Federal left,

upon the left flank of Sedgwick's lines, which were soon thrown into confusion; and McLaws, passing by Walker's left, also threw his division diagonally upon the already broker. and retreating lines of Sumner. Taken at such disadvantage,

1 Walker, in Battles and Leaders, II, p. 678.

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