Whilst our detached company was standing there, with the foot drawn up in the road a little way before us, a single horseman came out from the enemy and galloped past our picket, stationed up the road some distance ahead of the detachment. The picket fired upon him after he had passed; he dropped under his horse's side, and galloped back, apparently unharmed; but, from the direction of their fire, the picket was naturally mistaken for the enemy by the detachment in front, who could see only the flashes through the darkness. Some stood their ground, and returned the fire, placing the picket in great danger; but the bulk, already well scared by their repulse, broke away panic-stricken, and came rushing down the road toward us, thinking the enemy were charging behind them. Our company was suddenly overwhelmed, or borne along by the current, ignorant of the cause of alarm. I brought myself up behind the corner house, where many of the others were taking shelter. But hearing some one cry out, "To the church! to the church! make a stand in the church!" I immediately ran across the road and entered the church by a side-door. As I crossed the entrance, with two or three others, General Walker came running up from the interior, with his sword out, crying,--"Where's that man came into the church? Show me that man!" There were cocked revolvers with some of us, and it was, perhaps, well for General Walker that the crowd now pouring in strongly at both front and side doors diverted him. Turning to these, he threw himself first on one, then on another, battered, tugged, and thrust them out at the door with such force as I hardly thought was in him. He was soon assisted by Sanders, Waters, and other officers, and, with the curses and vociferations of these men, the confused rush of the panic-stricken crowd in the dark, and the outcries of the wounded, who lay about on the floor, as the fugitives trampled over them, there was such a pressure as might unchart a young soldier, and strand him among his fears. After seeing enough of it, I ran out again into the street, sore bestead, indeed, to know what I should do. Day was beginning to break, and in the gray dawn I saw the men ejected from the church running hither and thither, trying to rejoin their officers. And, there being neither standards nor drums to collect by, the sergeants stood at divers points shouting at the top of their voices the number and letter of their companies, and calling the fugitives to come into ranks. Minié-balls whizzed about in the air or knocked up the dust from the street, and firing was now and then heard near by in uncertain directions, where perhaps the enemy were vexing our pickets. I believe it had been a helter-skelter day for us all, had the enemy got in then and attacked us in the midst of this confusion. They might surely have driven us into irretrievable rout, flying on the road to Rivas, by a spirited charge of fifty good men, or much less.