Even the camp sentinels were taken completely by surprise and
barely had time to discharge their guns. On their heels rushed the
Confederates cheering madly.
Officers and men were killed in their beds and many fled in confusion
without their arms. Hildebrand's brigade of Sherman's division was
engulfed by the cyclone and swept from existence, appearing no more in
the battle.
In vain the broken lines of the Federal camps were formed and re-formed.
Charge followed charge in swift and terrible succession.
By half past ten o'clock the Confederates had captured and demolished
three great military encampments and taken three batteries of artillery.
Storehouses and munitions of war in rich profusion were captured at
every turn. The demoralized Union army was retreating at every point.
When Grant reached the field, the lines both of attack and defense were
lost in confusion. The battle raged in groups. Sometimes mere squads of
men surged back and forth over the broken, tangled, blood-soaked arena,
now in ravines and swamps, now for a moment emerging into clearings and
then buried again in the deep woods.
The stolid Federal commander sat his horse, keen-eyed, vigilant and
imperturbable in the storm of ruin. His early efforts counted for little
in the blind confusion and turmoil of his crushed army.
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