ll
hitched, rearing and kicking like mad, using all their strength to
unloosen themselves from the matted mass of vehicles, animals, and
men, for the stock had caught up the spirit of the panic, and were
eager to keep up the race. As by intuition, the flying soldiers felt
that the roadway would be blocked at the bridge over Cedar Creek, so
they crossed the turn-pike and bore to the left in order to reach the
fords above. As I reached the pike, and just before entering a thicket
beyond, I glanced over my shoulder toward the rear. One glance was
enough! On the hill beyond the enemy was placing batteries, the
infantry in squads and singly blazing away as rapidly as they could
load and fire, the grape and cannister falling and rattling upon the
ground like walnuts thrown from a basket. The whole vast plain in
front and rear was dotted with men running for life's sake, while over
and among this struggling mass the bullets fell like hail. How any
escaped was a wonder to the men themselves. The solid shot and shell
came bouncing along, as the boys would laughingly say afterwards,
"like a bob-tailed dog in high oats"--striking the earth, perhaps,
just behind you, rebound, go over your head, strike again, then
onward, much like the bounding of rubber balls. One ball, I remember,
came whizzing in the rear, and I heard it strike, then rebound, to
strike again just under or so near my uplifted foot that I felt the
peculiar sensation of the concussion, rise again, and strike a man
twenty paces in my front, tearing away his thigh, and on to another,
hitting him square in the back and tearing him into pieces. I could
only shrug my shoulders, close my eyes, and pull to the rear stronger
and faster.

The sun had now set. A squadron of the enemy's cavalry came at
headlong speed down the pike; the clatter of the horses hoofs upon
the hard-bedded stones added to the panic, and caused many who had not
reached the roadway to fall and surrender. About one hundred and fifty
of the Third Regiment had kept close at my heels (or I had kept near
their front, I can't say which is the correct explanation), with a
goodly number of Georgians and Mississippians, who had taken refuge in
a thicket for a moment's breathing spell, joining our ranks, and away
we continued our race. We commenced to bend our way gradually back
towards the stone bridge. But before we neared it sufficiently to
distinguish friend from foe, we heard the cavalry sabering our men,