“Chloroform was then administered, and the left arm amputated about two inches below the shoulder.  Throughout the whole of the operation, and until all the dressings were applied, he continued insensible.  About half-past three, Colonel (then Major) Pendleton arrived at the hospital.  He stated that General Hill had been wounded, and that the troops were in great disorder.  General Stuart was in command, and had sent him to see the general.  At first I declined to permit an interview, but Pendleton urged that the safety of the army and success of the cause depended upon his seeing him.  When he entered the tent the general said, ’Well, Major, I am glad to see you; I thought you were killed.’  Pendleton briefly explained the position of affairs, gave Stuart’s message, and asked what should be done.  Jackson was at once interested, and asked in his quick way several questions.  When they were answered, he remained silent, evidently trying to think; he contracted his brow, set his mouth, and for some moments lay obviously endeavouring to concentrate his thoughts.  For a moment we believed he had succeeded, for his nostrils dilated, and his eye flashed with its old fire, but it was only for a moment:  his face relaxed again, and presently he answered, very feebly and sadly:  ’I don’t know—­I can’t tell; say to General Stuart he must do what he thinks best.’  Soon after this he slept.”

So, leaving behind him, struggling vainly against the oppression of his mortal hurt, the one man who could have completed the Confederate victory, Pendleton rode wearily through the night.  Jackson’s fall, at so critical a moment, just as the final blow was to be delivered, had proved a terrible disaster.  Hill, who alone knew his intention of moving to the White House, had been wounded by a fragment of shell as he rode back to lead his troops.  Boswell, who had been ordered to point out the road, had been killed by the same volley which struck down his chief, and the subordinate generals, without instructions and without guides, with their men in disorder, and the enemy’s artillery playing fiercely on the forest, had hesitated to advance.  Hill, remaining in a litter near the line of battle, had sent for Stuart.  The cavalry commander, however, was at some distance from the field.  Late in the evening, finding it impossible to employ his command at the front, he had been detached by Jackson, a regiment of infantry supporting him, to take and hold Ely’s Ford.  He had already arrived within view of a Federal camp established at that point, and was preparing to charge the enemy, under cover of the night, when Hill’s messenger recalled him.

When Stuart reached the front he found the troops still halted, Rodes and Colston reforming on the open fields near Dowdall’s Tavern, the Light Division deployed within the forest, and the generals anxious for their own security.