It is the perception—­perhaps unconscious—­of this inexplicable phenomenon that causes the still unharmed, still vigorous and still courageous soldier to retire without having come into actual contact with his foe.  He sees, or feels, that he cannot.  His bayonet is a useless weapon for slaughter; its purpose is a moral one.  Its mandate exhausted, he sheathes it and trusts to the bullet.  That failing, he retreats.  He has done all that he could do with such appliances as he has.

No command to fall back was given, none could have been heard.  Man by man, the survivors withdrew at will, sifting through the trees into the cover of the ravines, among the wounded who could drag themselves back; among the skulkers whom nothing could have dragged forward.  The left of our short line had fought at the corner of a cornfield, the fence along the right side of which was parallel to the direction of our retreat.  As the disorganized groups fell back along this fence on the wooded side, they were attacked by a flanking force of the enemy moving through the field in a direction nearly parallel with what had been our front.  This force, I infer from General Johnston’s account, consisted of the brigade of General Lowry, or two Arkansas regiments under Colonel Baucum.  I had been sent by General Hazen to that point and arrived in time to witness this formidable movement.  But already our retreating men, in obedience to their officers, their courage and their instinct of self-preservation, had formed along the fence and opened fire.  The apparently slight advantage of the imperfect cover and the open range worked its customary miracle:  the assault, a singularly spiritless one, considering the advantages it promised and that it was made by an organized and victorious force against a broken and retreating one, was checked.  The assailants actually retired, and if they afterward renewed the movement they encountered none but our dead and wounded.

The battle, as a battle, was at an end, but there was still some slaughtering that it was possible to incur before nightfall; and as the wreck of our brigade drifted back through the forest we met the brigade (Gibson’s) which, had the attack been made in column, as it should have been, would have been but five minutes behind our heels, with another five minutes behind its own.  As it was, just forty-five minutes had elapsed, during which the enemy had destroyed us and was now ready to perform the same kindly office for our successors.  Neither Gibson nor the brigade which was sent to his “relief” as tardily as he to ours accomplished, or could have hoped to accomplish, anything whatever.  I did not note their movements, having other duties, but Hazen in his “Narrative of Military Service” says: 

“I witnessed the attack of the two brigades following my own, and none of these (troops) advanced nearer than one hundred yards of the enemy’s works.  They went in at a run, and as organizations were broken in less than a minute.”