The Louisianians and the Second Virginia had gotten through the brush and driven the enemy from the field. I was roused, to join in the pursuit, and had the satisfaction of seeing the five cannon that had played on our gun standing silent on the coal-hearth, in our hands. There being no room in their rear, their caissons and limbers stood off to their right on a flat piece of heavily wooded ground. This was almost covered with dead horses. I think there must have been eighty or ninety on less than an acre; one I noticed standing almost upright, perfectly lifeless, supported by a fallen tree. Farther on we overtook one of our battery horses which we had captured from Banks two weeks before. Shields's men then captured him from us, and we again from them. He had been wounded four times, but was still fit for service. Such a spectacle as we here witnessed and exultingly enjoyed possibly has no parallel. After a rapid retreat of more than one hundred miles, to escape from the clutches of three armies hotly pursuing on flank and rear, one of which had outstripped us, we paused to contemplate the situation. On the ground where we stood lay the dead and wounded of Shields's army, with much of their artillery and many prisoners in our possession, while, crowning the hills in full view and with no means of crossing an intervening river, even should they venture to do so, stood another army--Fremont's--with flags flying. CHAPTER IX FROM BROWN'S GAP TO STAUNTON--FROM STAUNTON TO RICHMOND--COLD HARBOR--GENERAL LEE VISITS HIS SON IN THE BATTERY I had exchanged my brother John as a bedfellow for Walter Packard. Walter was a droll fellow, rather given to arguing, and had a way of enraging his adversary while he kept cool, and, when it suited, could put on great dignity. Immediately following our battery, as we worked our way along a by-road through the foothills toward Brown's Gap, was Gen. Dick Taylor at the head of his Louisiana Brigade. Walter had mounted and was riding on a caisson, contrary to orders recently issued by Jackson. Taylor ordered him to get down. Walter turned around, and, looking coolly at him, said, with his usual sang-froid, "Who are you, and what the devil have you to do with my riding on a caisson?" Taylor seemed astounded for a moment, and then opened on poor Walter with a volley of oaths that our champion swearer, Irish Emmett, would have envied.