Imboden posted every gun with him on the heights between the town and the river. Hart, Eshleman, McClanahan—all faced the eighteen rifled guns with which presently the blue opened. A sharp artillery battle followed, each side firing with rapidity and some effect. Imboden had his cavalry and in addition seven hundred wagoners organized into companies and headed by commissaries, quartermasters, and several wounded officers. These wagoners did mightily. This fight was called afterwards “The Wagoners’ Battle.” Five blue cavalry regiments were thrown forward. The Eighteenth Virginia Cavalry and the Sixty-second Virginia Mounted Infantry met them with clangour in the rain-filled air. McNeill’s Partisan Rangers came to the aid of the wagoners down by the river. Eshleman’s eight Napoleons of the Washington Artillery, Hart’s and McClanahan’s and Moore’s batteries poured shot and shell from the heights. Through the dusk came at a gallop a courier from Fitzhugh Lee. “Hold out, General Imboden! We’re close at hand!” From the direction of the Hagerstown road broke a clap of war thunder, rolling among the hills. “Horse Artillery! Horse Artillery!” yelled Imboden’s lines, the Eighteenth, the Sixty-second, the Partisan Rangers, and the Wagoners. _Yaaaihh! Yaaaaihh! Yaaaaaaihhh! Forward! Charge!_ July the seventh broke wet and stormy. The First and Third Corps were now at Hagerstown. Ewell and the Second nearer South Mountain, yet watchfully regarding the defiles through which might pour the pursuit. But Meade had hesitated, hesitated. It was only on the afternoon of the fifth that a move southward was begun in earnest. The Sixth Corps, on the same road with Ewell, struck now and again at the grey rear guard, but the rest of the great blue army hung uncertain. Only on the seventh did it pour southward, through the country between the Monocacy and the Antietam. In the dusk of this day Lee met Stuart and ordered an attack at dawn. Time must be gained while a bridge was built across the swollen river. All day the eighth the heavy air carried draggingly the sound of cannon. So drowned with rain were the fields and meadows that manœuvring there was manœuvring in quagmires. The horsemen of both sides must keep to the roads, deep in mire as were these. Dismounted, they fought with carbines in all the sopping ways, while from every slight rise the metal duellists barked at one another. At last the Fifth Confederate Brigade drove the Federal left, and the running fight and the long wet day closed with one gleam of light in the west.