Keyes won the
race and formed his line in the nick of time. The tremendous fire poured
down from this new position was too much for the assaulting Southern
column and it halted.
The Confederate forces had forced the Federal lines back two miles as
the river fog and the darkness slowly rose and enveloped the field.
General Johnston ordered his men to sleep on the fields and camps they
had captured. A minute later he was hurled from his horse by an
exploding shell and was borne from the field dangerously wounded. The
first day's struggle had ended in reverses for the invading enemy. The
Confederates had captured ten guns, six thousand muskets, and five
hundred prisoners, besides driving McClellan's forces two miles from the
opening battle lines.
Between the two smoke-grimed, desperate armies locked thus in close
embrace there could be no truce for burying the fallen or rescuing the
wounded. Over the rain-soaked fields and woods for two miles behind the
Confederate front lay the dead, the dying, and the wounded, the blue
side by side with their foes in grey. Dim fog-ringed lanterns flickered
feebly here and there like wounded fireflies over the dark piles on the
ground.
The Southern ambulance corps did its best at its new trade. Their long
lines of wagons began to creep into Richmond and fill the hospitals.
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