ch their batteries were planted, and their lines of
infantry could be seen distinctly. Memory may have lost something of the
details of the picture, but the outlines remain as vivid, now as then.
The valley between was uneven, with spots of timber here and there and
broken into patches by fences, some of them of stone.

The full scope of the calamity which had befallen our arms burst
suddenly into view. The whole battle field was in sight. The valley and
intervening slopes, the fields and woods, were alive with infantry,
moving singly and in squads. Some entire regiments were hurrying to the
rear, while the confederate artillery was raining shot and shell and
spherical case among them to accelerate their speed. Some of the enemy's
batteries were the very ones just captured from us. It did not look like
a frightened or panic stricken army, but like a disorganized mass that
had simply lost the power of cohesion. A line of cavalry skirmishers[39]
formed across the country was making ineffectual efforts to stop the
stream of fugitives who had stolidly and stubbornly set their faces to
the rear. Dazed by the surprise in their camps, they acted like men who
had forfeited their self-respect. They were chagrined, mortified, mad at
their officers and themselves--demoralized; but, after all, more to be
pitied than blamed.

But all these thousands, hurrying from the field, were not the entire
army. They were the Eighth corps and a part of the Nineteenth only, a
fraction of the army. There, between ourselves and the enemy--between
the fugitives and the enemy--was a long line of blue, facing to the
front, bravely battling to stem the tide of defeat. How grandly they
stood to their work. Neither shot nor shell nor volleys of musketry
could break them. It was the old Sixth corps--the "ironsides" from the
Potomac army, who learned how to fight under brave John Sedgwick.
Slowly, in perfect order, the veterans of the Wilderness and
Spottsylvania were falling back, contesting every inch of the way. One
position was surrendered only to take another. There was no wavering, no
falling out of ranks, except of those who were shot down. The next
morning, one passing over the ground where those heroes fought, could
see where they successively stood and breasted the storm by the dead men
who lay in line where they had fallen. There were two or three lines of
these dead skirmishers. The official record shows that the Sixth corps
on that day lost