All gone? No! In the hush which came after Reynolds's desperate defence,
and while hearts were yet beating fast from watching the doubtful fight,
there arose far off to the right and rear a roar of musketry, telling
that somewhere in the distance the flags of the Army of the Cumberland
still waved before the foe, as they did with us. Long afterward we knew
that this was Thomas--he who would not leave the field amid the wreck
which surrounded him--Thomas, with his fragments, posted on a commanding
ridge and bravely beating off the thickening foes about him.
The story of the disaster is an old one. It is hardly necessary to tell
how Wood, in the main line on the right of Brannan, received an order
from Rosecrans to support Reynolds, the second division in line to the
left of Wood; how the gallant soldier hesitated to obey an order from
which such disaster might come; how McCook, chief of corps, told Wood
the order was imperative, and promised to put a reserve division into
the line to take his place; how Wood withdrew from the line, as ordered,
at the fatal moment when the enemy was preparing to attack; how the
furious foe pressed through the gap, cut the army in two, struck the
lines to right and left in flank and rear, swept the centre, the right
wing and the reserves off the field, and doubled up and crushed the left
wing as far as Reynolds's division, whose fortune has been told. All
this is familiar enough now, but those who remained on the field in the
four divisions of the left knew nothing of it then.
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