nd gave the command to fire.

"A hail of bullets rattled through the forest, and as volley after
volley was fired, the confusion and dismay occasioned in the camp were
indescribable. Soldiers and officers could be plainly seen by the light
of the fires walking helplessly about, horses were galloping wildly in
all directions, and the sound of bugles and drums mingled with the cries
of the wounded and flying, who sought in the distant woods a shelter
against the murderous fire of their unseen enemy. The troops whom we
thus dispersed and put to flight consisted, as I was afterward informed,
of the greater part of Averil's cavalry division, and a great number of
the men of this command were so panic-stricken that they did mot
consider themselves safe until they had reached the opposite side of
the Rapidan, when they straggled off for miles all through Culpeper
County.

"Our firing had been kept up for about half an hour, and had by this
time stirred up alarm in the camps on the other side of the river, the
troops of which were marching on us from various directions.
Accordingly, I gave orders to my North Carolinians to retire, leaving
the task of bringing his command back to the colonel; while, anxious to
rejoin Stuart as soon as I could, I galloped on ahead through the dark
forest, whose solemn silence was only broken by the melancholy cry of
hosts of whippoorwills. The firing had now ceased altogether, and all
fighting seemed to have been entirely given up, which greatly increased
my misgivings. After a tedious ride of nearly an hour over the field of
battle, still covered with hundreds of wounded groaning in their agony,
I at last discovered Stuart seated under a solitary plum-tree, busily
writing despatches by the dim light of a lantern.

"From General Stuart I now received the first intimation of the heavy
calamity which had befallen us by the wounding of Jackson. After having
instructed his men to fire at everything approaching from the direction
of the enemy, in his eagerness to reconnoitre the position of the
Federals, and entirely forgetting his own orders, he had been riding
with his staff-officers outside our pickets, when, on their return,
being mistaken for the enemy, the little party were received by a South
Carolina regiment with a volley that killed or wounded nearly every man
of them and laid low our beloved Stonewall himself. The Federals
advancing at the same time, a severe skirmish ensued, in the cours