This formidable move by open field to Pickett’s rear made his position untenable. Feeling this, the veteran soldiers of the left brigades realized that their battle was irretrievable. Those who could find escape from that end of the works fell back in broken ranks, while many others, finding the enemy closing in on their rear, thought it more soldierly to surrender to Ayres’s brave assaulting columns, and not a few were the captives of Crawford’s division.
It was not until that period that General Pickett knew, by the noise of battle, that it was on. He rode through the fire to his command, but his cavalry chief, riding later, was cut off from the field and failed to take part in the action. When Pickett got to the Forks, Colonel Pegram, of the artillery, had been mortally wounded, the battery commander was killed, and many of the cannoneers killed or wounded. He found an artillery sergeant and enough men to man one gun, and used it with effect until the axle broke.
The brigades of Steuart and Terry changed front and received the rolling battle. The cavalry assailants of the front and right had no decided success, but the infantry columns pressing their march, the Confederate brigades were pushed back to their extreme right, where in turn Corse’s brigade changed front to receive the march, leaving W. H. F. Lee’s cavalry to look to his right.
The Union cavalry essayed to charge the Confederate remnants to dismay, but the noble son of the noble sire seized opportunity to charge against the head of this threatening column before it could pass the swamp lands, drove back its head until Corse’s brigade got back to cover of woodland, and night came to cover the disastrous field.[208]
The remnants of the command were collected as soon and as well as they could be in the dead of night and marched towards Exeter Mills, where Pickett proposed to cross the Appomattox and return to the army, but early movements of the next morning changed the face of the military zodiac.
The position was not of General Pickett’s choosing, but of his orders, and from his orders he assumed that he would be reinforced. His execution was all that a skilful commander could apply. He reported as to his position and the movements of the enemy threatening to cut his command from the army, but no force came to guard his right. The reinforcements joined him after night, when his battle had been lost and his command disorganized. The cavalry of his left was in neglect in failing to report the advance of the enemy, but that was not for want of proper orders from his head-quarters. Though taken by surprise, there was no panic in any part of the command; brigade after brigade changed front to the left and received the overwhelming battle as it rolled on, until crushed back to the next, before it could deploy out to aid the front,—or flank attack,—until the last right brigade of the brave Corse changed and stood alone on the left of W. H. F. Lee’s cavalry, fronting at right angle against the enemy’s cavalry columns.
It is not claiming too much for that grand division to say that, aided by the brigades of Ransom and Wallace, they could not have been dislodged from their intrenched position by parallel battle even by the great odds against them. As it was, Ayres’s division staggered under the pelting blows that it met, and Crawford’s drifted off from the blows against it, until it thus found the key of the battle away beyond the Confederate limits.
In generalship Pickett was not a bit below the “gay rider.” His defensive battle was better organized, and it is possible that he would have gained the day if his cavalry had been diligent in giving information of the movements of the enemy.[209]
The losses are not found in separate reports. Both sides suffered severely, Pickett losing two thousand. He had nine thousand men of all arms. His adversary had twenty-six thousand.