George H. Gordon, From Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain

[80] opportunity offer he would startle the country with what a fighting commander could accomplish, he saw opening before him his opportunity. The large powers entrusted to him by General Stone he never thought of using other than for a fight, and when, too late, he saw his error, he expiated it with his, life. Would that some others had done likewise, and that the enemy had captured their commissions as major-general, as Baker's was captured when his cape-overcoat was found hanging on a tree, at the time his body was lying stark and stiff in Maryland!

The demonstration from Edward's Ferry by General Stone was not so serious as to call for the use of much, if any, of General Evans's force to observe it. General Stone could not aid Colonel Baker, so he says, by marching along the Virginia shore, because “there was a Rebel battery in the woods between the two ferries, which had prevented a reconnoissance in that direction.”

At four P. M. a telegram from General Stone to General Banks, for a brigade to occupy the Maryland shore opposite Harrison's Island, had caused our movement, as I have narrated. Our brigade was to replace those troops at Conrad's Ferry which General Stone then supposed to be pressing on victorious after the flying Rebels. Hence the letter to me that Stone was in Leesburg, with very little fighting. At five o'clock P. M., news of Colonel Baker's death was conveyed to General Stone; the news of the disaster soon followed. Instructions delivered on the road from Stone met General Hamilton: these were, to repair to Conrad's Ferry, and there dispose of his force so as to protect Harrison's Island.

The rain poured piteously upon us all day of the 22d, as all day fugitives and wounded came into our lines. Parts of three regiments were utterly demoralized and routed, and yet there was a plucky feeling among some of them. A