was concealed, with a murderous
fire, which sent them reeling back to the cover of the first ravine.
Their charge had inflicted little damage upon the Union line. It was now
nearly dark, and the reception which the rebels had received had so
completely routed and broken them, that they made no further attempt
upon our lines.

About nine o'clock, the division was ordered to fall back to Banks'
Ford, now two miles distant from us. We fell back quietly, and found
that the other divisions had preceded us, and were snugly behind rifle
pits. They had fallen back as soon as it was dark, leaving the Second
division to cover the retreat.

Meantime, comparatively little fighting had been done by the other
divisions, though a constant skirmish was kept up, and in the evening
the confederates managed to get in the rear of a part of the picket of
the Light division, capturing a large number of prisoners from the
Forty-third and Thirty-first New York, and Sixty-first Pennsylvania.

The position at Banks' Ford might have been held until reinforcements
could have reached the corps from Hooker; but, unfortunately, that
general, receiving from General Sedgwick first, intelligence that he
could not safely hold the position, then that he could, ordered the
corps to be withdrawn, and afterward countermanded the order; but the
last order was only received when the movement had been accomplished.

Toward morning the corps recrossed the Rappahannock on pontoon bridges;
not without the utmost difficulty; one bridge being destroyed by rebel
artillery, and the other barely saved from destruction long enough to
allow the troops hurriedly to pass over.

The corps had passed through a fearful ordeal, and had shown itself to
be made of heroic material. No two more brilliant feats had been
performed during the war, than the storming of the heights of
Fredericksburgh, and the splendid resistance when surrounded and
attacked by overwhelming forces. The men came out of the fight, not
demoralized, but as ready to scale those terrible heights again, if
called upon, as they had been on the 3d of May.

General Sedgwick had manifested during the fights, those masterly
qualities which made him one of the greatest soldiers of the age. His
conduct on the retreat was cool and unimpassioned. Personally examining
every part of the ground in front and rear, riding from one end of the
line to the other, now ordering a battery placed at some commanding
point, a