Our brigade in line faced to the rear, the guns behind them, and covered the movement. The silence of the guns soon told our friends over yonder what was going on, and they were not long in following after; our men, facing to the rear, delivered their fire steadily, moving in retreat, facing and firing every few steps, effectually keeping off a rush; they pressed us, but cautiously--the darkness concealed our numbers. We were going through an open old field, and came now to a road through a narrow piece of woods, where we broke from line into column, and double-quicked through the woods so as to get to the road beyond. Before we got to the turnpike we heard the bugles of the enemy down it, and as the head of our column came into the road their cavalry charged the train some two or three hundred yards below us. Sixty pieces of cannon, at the point where we came into the road, the drivers were attempting to turn back toward the Court House, had got entangled with one another and presented a scene of utter confusion. As our regiment got into the road some thirty or forty men were thrown out from the last squadron and faced to the rear on the right and left, opening a fire directly upon those of the dismounted men who were pressing us from that quarter. I had but little fear of the enemy's cavalry riding into us on the road, so blocked up as it was with the routed artillery train, and there were woods on both sides just here. In passing from the old field, where the guns had been at work, into the woods that separated it from the turnpike, two men were walking just in front of me, following their gun, which was on before. I heard one say, "_Tout perdu_." I asked at once, "What battery do you belong to?" "Donaldsonville." It was the creole company; and they might well have added the other words of the great Francis, after the battle of Pavia, "_Tout perdu fors l'honneur_" all lost but honor; for well had they done their work from 'sixty-one, when they came to Virginia, until now, when all was lost, "_Tout perdu_"--it was the motto of the occasion. The stag was in the toils, but the end was not yet. We could hear the rush, the shouts and pistol shots, where the enemy mounted and in force had attacked the train; the artillerymen having no arms could make no fight, as they could not use their pieces. We could do nothing (being closely pressed by a superior force of their dismounted men) but fall back upon the town toward our main body, making the best front we could, leaving the road and marching under cover of the timber on the side, being on foot giving us a better position to resist any attack that might be made upon us by the cavalry.