When I got my wits about me again I found a good many coming back, but the main part of the force was compact and keeping up the fight.

I did not get closer to the woods than about five hundred feet, and found that a large number had penetrated into the enemy's works.

When our men fell back, very few ran, but came slowly and sullenly, far more angry than frightened.

I found General Frank Blair on foot, and with him Colonel Sea, of Southwest Missouri, and learned that Colonel Thomas Fletcher, afterward Governor of Missouri, was captured with many of his men.

They both insisted there on the spot, with those around us, that if all the men ordered up had gone up, or even all that crossed the bayou had moved forward, we could have readily established ourselves in the enemy's works.