In about ten minutes Averill ordered his men to advance. They came right to the ford, not knowing that we were there, and we opened fire on them from behind the breast works and drove them back with considerable slaughter.
Then Averill charged with another regiment, but we drove them back also. He then charged a third time, just about sun-rise, and by that time three companies of the 3rd regiment, commanded by Capt. Moss, had reinforced us, and Capt. Breckinridge, thinking we had enough men to hold them back, ordered us not to fire until they got into the middle of the river.
Gen. Duffe, commanding a French brigade, had the majority of his men in and near the river before we opened fire. Several men were shot from their horses and the horses rushed right out of the river and over our breast works. Some of them killed themselves on the stockades. When Gen. Duffe got within about ten feet of the bank, his horse was shot and the Gen. came very near being drowned. When his men rescued him he was unconscious.
By this time so many of his men had crossed the river that Capt. Breckinridge saw they would over-power us, so ordered us to fall back. Some of our men didn’t hear the order and remained in the breast works and were captured.
We fell straight back from the river under a heavy fire all the time and the men with the horses couldn’t well get to us on account of a fence and the heavy firing. Those on the extreme left had so much farther to go than the others, that they couldn’t get the horses to them at all. I was with the dozen or so, that was on the extreme left, and just as I saw the man with my horse coming toward me, I noticed a little piece of ground fenced off right between us, which to go around would take some little time longer to get to my horse, so I just kicked off a pole and jumped over, to save distance, you understand, and to my utter amazement, I found I had jumped into a bed of quicksand.
Four Yanks were pursuing us as rapidly as they could and when they saw I had been caught in the sand, they rushed right on around the fence and drew their pistols on me. I had managed to get out of the sand by the time they got to me, but in doing so, had nearly dislocated one of my hips, so couldn’t run. The man with my horse saw that if he stopped to help me, he and the horses too would be captured, so had gone on knowing I’d be captured—the realization of my dream—only caught in quicksand instead of mud. I immediately surrendered, of course, but found that three of the men to whom I had surrendered were beastly drunk.
By that time our line of battle was coming in sight and the three drunken men rushed on for fear of being captured by our men. I held to the mane of the horse that my captor was riding and as we went back several Yanks shot at me. The man told me to get on the opposite side so they could not see me so well. One man shot at my hand as I held the horse’s mane and missed my hand and shot the horse in the neck. They were drunk and enraged because we had shot their General’s horse and he came so near being drowned. They were saying d— you, you killed our General! Some of them thought he was killed.
When we got right to the river, I saw a lot of men standing around a Gen. who was lying on the ground, and I told the man who had captured me that if he would take me over there, they certainly wouldn’t fire among them. It proved to be Gen. Duffe who had been resuscitated and was just able to stand up as we got to him.
The man told the Gen. that there was a man he had captured and asked him what he must do with me, and the Gen. just reached out and hit me over the head with the gauntlet of his glove.
He asked me why we dared to fire on his command with our picket? I told him we were ordered to hold the ford and would have fired on Hooker’s whole army if it had advanced. Then he hit me again.