Still it was not quite a panic; two regiments, the Seventy-first New York and Second Rhode Island, kept their ranks in all this confusion, and were led in order from the field, over the road they had passed in the morning. Other regiments were led off in a wild, scattered way, but most of the great army was broken up, battalions and regiments surging together, and dashing through each other, till they became one mighty scene of confusion. [Illustration: THE ENEMY LARGELY REINFORCED—DESPERATE FIGHTING OF THE UNION TROOPS AGAINST SUPERIOR NUMBERS. ] The enemy pursued them in a broken, hesitating way, like men astonished at their own success; wanting confidence, they did not venture in force to follow the retreating army, but captured many of the scattered bands dispersed over the wide field of conflict. One detachment of cavalry charged on a helpless crowd of wounded, who were gathered near a hospital building; when a handful of unorganized men, mostly civilians, seized upon the first weapons at hand, and repelled it bravely. Up to this time Schenck’s brigade had kept its position at Stone Bridge. Captain Alexander, with his sappers and miners, had just cut through the abatis by the side of the mined bridge, that Schenck might lead his forces after those of Sherman and Keyes, when the torrent of retreat rolled toward him; his protecting battery was taken, and a force of cavalry and infantry came pouring into the road at the very spot where the battle of the morning commenced. The first battery attacked that day had been silenced, but not taken; and there, in the woods which protected it, four hundred South Carolinians had been concealed during the entire battle, to swarm out now and fall upon the Union infantry in this most critical moment. A sudden swoop of cavalry completed that unhappy day’s work. The Union infantry broke ranks, and plunging into the woods fled up the hill. A crowd of ambulances and army wagons had concentrated close to this spot, and civilians, led to the field by curiosity, blocked up the ground. The panic which had swept the battle-field seized on them. Kellogg of Michigan, Washburne of Illinois, and it is said, Lovejoy of Illinois, flung themselves in the midst of the fugitives, and entreated them to make a stand. Ely, of New York, was taken prisoner in a rash effort to restore confidence to the panic-stricken masses of men. But the maddened crowd plunged on. The teamsters urged their frightened horses into a headlong rush for the road; everything and everybody, brave or craven, were swept forward by the irresistible human torrent. It was a stampede which no power could check or resist. From the branch road the trains attached to Hunter’s division had caught the contagion, and rushed into the staggering masses, creating fresh dismay and wilder confusion.