Our company, or part of it,—­for most had been placed about on pickets when the attack failed,—­after a while fell farther back, turned the corner before mentioned, faced about, and came to a stand in the street, with an adobe house on the left.  The street in which we stood ran straight forward, and crossed the one down which we had just receded at right angles, a few feet ahead of us, so that there was here a junction of four streets, or, I might better say, roads; for there were no more than four disconnected houses in the immediate vicinity,—­the one on the corner beside us, one on the corner diagonally opposite, the one up the street running left, on the far side, behind which we had a little while ago taken shelter, and the square stone church, whither we had carried the wounded man, and which stood on the far side of the street some yards behind us.  The rest of the space was covered with fruit-trees and a heavy growth of hushes; and concealed behind these lay the barricades and the plaza of San Jorge.  But all this was seen later; then the whole was wrapped in thick darkness, it yet lacking some short time of daybreak.

Whilst our detached company was standing there, with the foot drawn up in the road a little way before us, a single horseman came out from the enemy and galloped past our picket, stationed up the road some distance ahead of the detachment.  The picket fired upon him after he had passed; he dropped under his horse’s side, and galloped back, apparently unharmed; but, from the direction of their fire, the picket was naturally mistaken for the enemy by the detachment in front, who could see only the flashes through the darkness.  Some stood their ground, and returned the fire, placing the picket in great danger; but the bulk, already well scared by their repulse, broke away panic-stricken, and came rushing down the road toward us, thinking the enemy were charging behind them.  Our company was suddenly overwhelmed, or borne along by the current, ignorant of the cause of alarm.  I brought myself up behind the corner house, where many of the others were taking shelter.  But hearing some one cry out, “To the church! to the church! make a stand in the church!” I immediately ran across the road and entered the church by a side-door.  As I crossed the entrance, with two or three others, General Walker came running up from the interior, with his sword out, crying,—­“Where’s that man came into the church?  Show me that man!” There were cocked revolvers with some of us, and it was, perhaps, well for General Walker that the crowd now pouring in strongly at both front and side doors diverted him.  Turning to these, he threw himself first on one, then on another, battered, tugged, and thrust them out at the door with such force as I hardly thought was in him.  He was soon assisted by Sanders, Waters, and other officers, and, with the curses and vociferations of these men, the confused rush of the panic-stricken crowd in the dark, and the outcries of the wounded, who lay about on the floor, as the fugitives trampled over them, there was such a pressure as might unchart a young soldier, and strand him among his fears.