Here was a commanding general in the peculiar situation that he
could almost see and could plainly hear a battle raging, but did
not learn its successful result until fifteen hours after it ceased.

I remained on the mountain spur in command of a few companies of
infantry with orders to keep the men standing in line of battle,
without fires, during the entire night. It rained most of the
time, and the weather becoming cold the men suffered intensely.
The rest of the army retired to its camp a mile and a half distant.

Pegram gathered his demoralized forces together, and with such as
were supposed able to make a long march, started about midnight to
escape by a mountain path around to the westward of the Hart farm,
hoping to gain the main road and join Garnett's forces, still
supposed to be at Laurel Hill.

On the morning of the 12th of July we found a few broken-down men
in Pegram's late camp, and a considerable number of mere boys--
students from William and Mary and Hamden-Sidney colleges--too
young yet for war.

McClellan and his staff, with dazzling display, rode through the
deserted works, viewed the captured guns, gazed on the dejected
prisoners, and then wired the War Department: "In possession of
all the enemy's works up to a point in sight of Beverly. Have
taken all his guns. . . . Behavior of troops in action and towards
prisoners admirable."

The army moved up the mountain to the battle-field, and halted a
few moments to view it. The sight of men with gunshot wounds was
the first for the new volunteers, and they were deeply impressed
by it; all looked upon those who had participated in the battle as
veritable heroes.

Late on the 12th the troops reached Beverly, the junction of the
turnpike roads far in the rear of Laurel Hill, and there bivouacked.

Garnett, learning of Pegram's disaster at Rich Mountain, abandoned
his intrenchments at Laurel Hill, and leaving his tents and other
property hastily retreated towards Beverly, pursued rather timidly
by Morris' command. Had Garnett pushed his army rapidly through
Beverly he could have passed in safety on the afternoon of the
12th, but being falsely informed that it was occupied in the
morning of that day by McClellan's troops, he turned off at Leadsville
Church, about five miles from Beverly, and retreated up the Leading
Creek road, a very rough and difficult one to travel. A portion
of Morris' command, led by Captain Benham of the regular army