They had marched across the country without
reference to roads, always a very slow mode of advancing, and doubly
so with undrilled men. The untrained regiments must, in the nature
of things, have been very much like a mob when their so-called
columns-in-mass approached the field of battle. It is impossible to
reconcile the statements of the reports as to the time they became
engaged. General Williams says they were engaged before seven
o'clock. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 476.] General Meade says they relieved
his men not earlier than ten or eleven. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 270.]
It seems to be guesswork in both cases, and we are forced to judge
from circumstantial evidence. Ricketts thinks he had been fighting
four hours when he retired for lack of ammunition, and the Twelfth
Corps men had not yet reached him. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 259.]
Patrick, on the extreme right, says that his men had made their
coffee in the lull after his retreat to the sheltering ledge of
rocks, and had completed their breakfast before the first of
Mansfield's men joined him there. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 244.] The
circumstantial details given by several officers make the interval
between the attack by the Twelfth Corps and the arrival of Sumner a
very short one.
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