column staggered, quailed, fell into disorder, and then fell back.
Some of the more desperate dashed singly into the thicket, bayoneting
their enemies, and falling in turn in the fierce grapple. Others of the
Confederates ran from the wood, and engaged hand to hand with
antagonists, and, in places, a score of combatants met sturdily upon the
plain, lunging with knife and sabre bayonet, striking with clubbed
musket, or discharging revolvers. But at last the broken lines regained
the shelter of the timber, and there was a momentary lull in the
thunder.

For a time, each party kept in the edges of the timber, firing at will,
but the Confederates were moving forward in masses by detours, until
some thousands of them stood in the places of the few who were at first
isolated. Distinct charges were now made, and a large body of Federals
attempted to capture the battery before Slaughter's house, while
separate brigades charged by front and flank upon the impenetrable
timber. The horrible results of the previous effort were repeated; the
Confederates preserved their position, and, at nightfall, the Federals
fell back a mile or more. From fifteen hundred to two thousand of the
latter were slain or wounded, and, though the heat of the battle had
lasted not more than two hours, nearly four thousand men upon both sides
were maimed or dead. The valor of the combatants in either cause was
unquestionable. But no troops in the world could have driven the
Confederates out of the impregnable mazes of the wood. It was an error
to expose columns of troops upon an open plain, in the face of
imperceptible sharpshooters. The batteries should have shelled the
thickets, and the infantry should have retained their concealment. The
most disciplined troops of Europe would not have availed in a country of
bog, barren, ditch, creek, forest, and mountain. Compared to the bare
plain of Waterloo, Cedar Mountain was like the antediluvian world, when
the surface was broken by volcanic fire into chasms and abysses. In this
battle, the Confederate batteries, along the mountain side, were
arranged in the form of a crescent, and, when the solid masses charged
up the hill, they were butchered by enfilading fires. On the Confederate
part, a thorough knowledge of the country was manifest, and the best
possible disposition of forces and means; on the side of the Federals,
there was zeal without discretion, and gallantry without generalship.

During the action,