James Starbuck had lost all sense of time. He reloaded his revolver, fired and reloaded. He scarce knew what he was doing, only that every shot could save the Union. He was terrified, but he fought on, taking an odd courage from the thought of his younger sister. He had decided that Martha alone would mourn him and that he could not disgrace her affection and it was that resolve which held him to his place where he fought like a ranker, firing and loading, firing and loading, and all the while saying Martha’s name aloud like a talisman that would keep him brave. Martha was the sister whose character was most like Nathaniel’s, and as James stood amid the litter of wounded and dead, he could have wept that God had not given him Martha and Nathaniel’s brazen daring.

Then, just as he manipulated the last of his small percussion caps onto his revolver’s cones, a cheer spread along the southern line and James looked up to see the whole enemy front surging forward. He straightened his aching bruised arm and pointed the revolver at what looked like a vast rat-gray army scorched black by powder burns that was charging straight toward him.

Then, just as he muttered his sister’s name and half-flinched from the noise his revolver would make, he saw he was utterly alone.

One moment there had been a battle, and now there was rout.

For the federal army had broken and run.

They pelted down the hill, discipline gone to the wind. Men threw away rifles and muskets, bayonets and haversacks, and just fled. Some ran north toward the Sudley Fords while others ran for the stone bridge. A few men tried to stem the charge, shouting at their fellow northerners to form line and stand firm, but the few were swamped by the many. The panicked troops flooded the fields on either side of the turnpike on which a limbered cannon, its horses whipped into a frantic gallop, ran down screaming infantrymen with its iron-shod wheels. Other men used battle standards as spears with which to fight their way toward the stream.