Another gallant effort was now made, Seymour's depleted
brigade striving to cover the opening, but the enemy dashed at it as
Anderson came up the slope, and the left being taken in flank, the
whole broke again to the rear. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 269, 270.]
Ricketts's right was also imperilled, and he withdrew his exhausted
lines to reorganize and to fill their empty cartridge-boxes. There
was a lull in the battle, and the combatants on both sides were
making desperate efforts to reform their broken regiments.
Mansfield had called the Twelfth Corps to arms at the first sound of
Hooker's battle and marched to his aid. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xix. pt. i. p. 475.] It consisted of two divisions, Williams's
and Greene's, the first of two and the other of three brigades.
There were a number of new and undrilled regiments in the command,
and in hastening to the front in columns of battalions in mass,
proper intervals for deployment had not been preserved, and time was
necessarily lost before the troops could be put in line. Indeed,
some of them were not regularly deployed at all. They had left their
bivouac at sunrise which, as it was about the equinox, was not far
from six o'clock.
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