Kershaw and Cash, were taken from the line at Mitchell’s Ford and hurried forward.  When all the forces, were gotten well in hand, a general forward movement was made.  But the enemy met it with a determined front.  The shrieking and bursting of shells shook the very earth, while the constant roll of the infantry sounded like continual peals of heavy thunder.  Here and there an explosion, like a volcanic eruption, told of a caisson being blown up by the bursting of a shell.  The enemy graped the field right and left, and had a decided advantage in the forenoon when their long range twenty-pounders played havoc with our advancing and retreating columns, while our small four and six-pounders could not reach their batteries.  But in the after part of the day, when the contending forces were nearer together, Rickett’s and Griffin’s Batteries, the most celebrated at that time in the Northern Army, could not stand the precision and impetuosity of Kemper’s, the Washington, Stannard’s, Pendleton’s, and Pelham’s Batteries as they graped the field.  The Second and Eighth South Carolina coming up at a double quick, joined Hampton’s Legion, with Early, Cox, and the troops from the Valley just in time to be of eminent service at a critical moment.  The clear clarion voice of Kershaw gave the command, “Forward!” and when repeated in the stentorian voice of Cash, the men knew what was expected of them, answered the call, and leaped to the front with a will.  The enemy could no longer withstand the desperate onslaught of the Confederate Volunteers, and McDowell now began to interest himself with the doubtful problem of withdrawing his troops at this critical juncture.  With the rugged banks of the deep, sluggish stream in his rear, and only a few places it could be crossed, with a long sheet of flame blazing out from the compact lines of the Confederates into the faces of his men, his position was perilous in the extreme.  His troops must have been of like opinion, for the ranks began to waver, then break away, and soon they found themselves in full retreat.  Kershaw, Cash, and Hampton pressed them hard towards Stone Bridge.  A retreat at first now became a panic, then a rout.  Men threw away their baggage, then their guns, all in a mad rush to put the stream between themselves and the dreaded “gray-backs.”  Cannon were abandoned, men mounted the horses and fled in wild disorder, trampling underfoot those who came between them and safety, while others limbered up their pieces and went at headlong speed, only to be upset or tangled in an unrecognizable mass on Stone Bridge.  The South Carolinians pressed them to the very crossing, capturing prisoners and guns; among the latter was the enemy’s celebrated “Long Tom.”  All semblance of order was now cast aside, each trying to leave his less fortunate neighbor in the rear.  Plunging headlong down the precipitous banks of the Run, the terror-stricken soldiers pushed over and out in the woods and the fields on the other side.