guns, to be driven back by grape. With heavy loss they at length
succeeded in escaping through the thicket. A letter from the commander
was subsequently captured, wherein he denounces the conduct of his
superiors who abandoned him to his fate. However true the allegation, it
is doubtful if his brigade could have rendered more service elsewhere.
The suddenness of its appearance stopped our forward movement, and a cry
arose that we were firing on our own people. The thickening gloom made
it impossible to disabuse the troops of this belief, and I ordered them
to withdraw to the open field. The movement was made slowly and in
perfect order, the men forming in the field as they emerged from the
thicket. The last light of day was fading as I rode along the line, and
the noise of battle had ceased.

Churchill came to report the result of his attack, and seemed much
depressed. I gave such consolation as I could, and directed him to move
his command to the mill stream, seven miles to the rear, where he would
find his trains and water. A worthy, gallant gentleman, General
Churchill, but not fortunate in war.

The mill stream was the nearest water to be had, and I was compelled to
send the troops back to it. The enemy made no attempt to recover the
ground from which his center and right had been driven. Bee picketed the
field with his cavalry, his forage wagons were ordered up from the mill
stream, and it was hoped that water for his two regiments could be found
in the wells and cisterns of the village. Sounds of retreat could be
heard in the stillness of the night. Parties were sent on the field to
care for the wounded, and Bee was ordered to take up the pursuit toward
Grand Ecore at dawn, to be followed by the horse from the mill stream as
soon as water and forage had been supplied. These dispositions for the
morning made, worn out by fatigue and loss of sleep, I threw myself on
the ground, within two hundred yards of the battle field, and sought
rest. The enemy retreated during the night, leaving four hundred
wounded, and his many dead unburied. On the morning of the 10th Bee
pursued for twenty miles before he overtook his rear guard, finding
stragglers and burning wagons and stores, evidences of haste.

In the two actions of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill my loss in killed and
wounded was twenty-two hundred. At Pleasant Hill we lost three guns and
four hundred and twenty-six prisoners, one hundred and seventy-nine from
Churchi