; the Phalanx lost about 800 men,
the white troops about 600. It was Braddock's defeat after
the lapse of a century."

The rout was complete; the army was not only defeated but beaten and
demoralized. The enemy had succeeded in drawing it into a trap for the
purpose of annihilating it. Seymour had advanced, contrary to the orders
given him by General Gillmore, from Baldwin's Station, where he was
instructed to intrench and await orders. Whether or not he sought to
retrieve the misfortunes that had attended him in South Carolina, in
assaulting the enemy's works, is a question which need not be discussed
here. It is only necessary to show the miserable mismanagement of the
advance into the enemy's country. The troops were marched into an
ambuscade, where they were slaughtered by the enemy at will. Even after
finding his troops ambuscaded, and within two hundred yards of the
confederate fortifications, General Seymour did not attempt to fall back
and form a line of battle, though he had sufficient artillery, but
rushed brigade after brigade up to the enemy's guns, only to be mowed
down by the withering storm of shot. Each brigade in turn went in as
spirited as any troops ever entered a fight, but stampeded out of it
maimed, mangled and routed. At sunset the road, foot-paths and woods
leading back to Saunders' Station, was full of brave soldiers hastening
from the massacre of their comrades, in their endeavor to escape
capture. At about nine o'clock that night, what remained of the left
column, Colonel Montgomery's brigade, consisting of the 54th and 35th
Phalanx Regiments, and a battery, arrived at the Station, and reported
the confederates in hot pursuit.

[Illustration: CHARGE OF THE PHALANX.]

Instantly the shattered, scattered troops fled to the roads leading to
Barber's, ten miles away, with no one to command. Each man took his own
route for Barber's, leaving behind whatever would encumber him,--arms,
ammunition, knapsacks and cartridge boxes; many of the latter containing
forty rounds of cartridges. It was long past midnight when Barber's was
reached, and full day before the frightened mob arrived at the Station.
At sunrise on the morning of the 21st, the scene presented at Barber's
was sickening and sad. The wounded lay everywhere, upon the ground,
huddled around the embers of fagot fires, groaning and uttering cries of
distress. The surgeons were busy relieving, as best they could, the more
dangerously