Shaw's brigade might be totally enveloped, I directed him to fall back and connect with my right. In the mean time the enemy's right had advanced beyond my extreme left and were taken in flank and rolled up by the First Brigade, Third Division, Colonel William F. Lynch commanding. Seizing the opportunity I ordered a charge by the whole line, and we drove them back, desperately fighting, step by step across the field, through the wood, and into the open field beyond, fully a mile from the battle-field, when they took advantage of the darkness and fell back toward Mansfield thoroughly whipped and demoralized. In the charge we captured nearly 1,000 prisoners, five pieces of artillery, and six caissons. The artillery was brought off, but the caissons were left until morning. The casualties in my command were as follows: Killed, 98; wounded, 529; missing, 124; total, 751.* A large proportion of the missing were of the Thirty-second Iowa, which was on the left of Shaw's brigade, and were nearly surrounded in the early part of the battle during the enemy's first charge. The loss of the enemy in killed was unusually severe.

A brigade of cavalry which charged Shaw's brigade in the early part of the action were almost annihilated, he allowing them to approach within 50 yards before opening fire. The prisoners captured were many of them from Missouri regiments, belonging to the divisions that had re-enforced the enemy during the engagement. The darkness compelled us to cease pursuit.

Anticipating the order to follow up our success by a vigorous pursuit, the next morning I sent the Third Brigade, Third Division, Colonel R. M. Moore commanding, about 2 1/2 miles out on the road taken by the retreating enemy, with orders to watch their movements and gain all the information possible, and fell back with the remainder of my command and bivouacked in line on the field of battle. The opinion of Major-General Banks as to the action of the command and its results may be gathered from his own words to me on the field just after the final charge, when, riding up to me, he remarked, shaking me by the hand, "God bless you, general; you have saved the army."

About 12 o'clock on the night of the 9th, I received orders from General Banks to have my command in readiness to move at 2 o'clock in the morning, and at that hour to withdraw them silently from the field and follow the Nineteenth Army Corps back to Grand Ecore, making such disposition of my troops and trains as would enable me to repel an attack on the rear of the column. I represented to him that the dead of my command were not buried, and that I had not the means of transporting my wounded; that many of the wounded had not yet been gathered in from the field, and asked of him permission to remain until noon the next day to give me an opportunity to bury my dead and leave the wounded as well provided for as the circumstances would permit. I also urged the fact that General Thomas Kilby Smith's command, then 30 miles above us on transports in the river, would undoubtedly be captured and the transports lost if left to themselves. The permission to remain was, however, refused and the order to move made peremptory. I therefore provided as well as possible for the wounded, left medical officers to attend to them, and moved at the designated hour, following the Nineteenth Corps. We reached Grand Ecore on the

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*But see revised statement, p. 313.

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