In quitting their posts at the breastworks Haley, having lost forty-nine horses killed in harness, had to abandon three guns of his 1st Maine battery, and Taft lost three pieces of his 5th New York battery at the difficult crossing of Meadow Brook. There, too, from the same cause, three guns of the 17th Indiana and two of the Rhode Island battery were abandoned. The losses of the infantry were to be counted in thousands. Grover was slightly wounded; Macauley, as has been said, severely. Emory had lost both his horses, and was for a time commanding the corps afoot. Birge rode a mule. Thus the Nineteenth Corps lost eleven guns. Crook had already lost seven, and the Sixth Corps was presently to lose six. With Gordon on his flank and rear, every moment drawing nearer to the mastery of the valley road, Wright had to think, and to think quickly, of the safety and the success of the army he commanded. For it there was no longer a position south of Middletown. What security was there that Custer and Powell would be able all day long to hold off, as in the event they did, the flank and rear attacks of Rosser and of Lomax? What if the Longstreet message were true and yet a third surprise in store? Time, time was needed, whether to bring up the troops or to change front, to march to the rear past the faces of the advancing enemy, to hold him in check, and to re-form. Whatever was to be done was to be done quickly; and Wright, throwing prudence into the balance, made up his mind for a retreat to a fresh position, where his line of communications would be preserved and its flanks protected. Middletown and the cavalry camp pointed out the ground. Accordingly he gave the word to Getty, Ricketts being wounded, to retire on Middletown, guiding on the valley road, and to Emory to form on Getty's right--that is, on the left of the Sixth Corps in retreat. The battle had been raging for nearly an hour when Wright gave this order to abandon Belle Grove. The retreat threw upon Getty's division, now under Grant, the severe task of covering the exposed right flank of the army in retreat, while the left was gradually swinging into the direction of the new line. Getty, having handsomely performed this service, crossed Meadow Brook abreast with Middletown and took position on the high and partly wooded ground that rises beyond the brook to the west of the village and on a line with Merritt's camp. Here, on the southern edge of the village cemetery and on the crest behind it, Getty planted his artillery, posted Grant to hold the immediate front, and somewhat in his rear, under the trees, following the contour of the hill, as it rises toward the west, he placed Wheaton and Keifer.