Then followed sunset and twilight with the
hymn of the thrush. A single star like a great silver lamp
trembled above the summit of a hill, where the gathering mist
like a thin gossamer film was settling on its sides.
How different that night of inky blackness, in which a pouring
rain continued to fall daring the stormy night drenching the
Union men under Moore! Just as the gray of the eastern sky
announced the approach of dawn, skirmishers were leaving the
camp. A few hours later Siegel came up with the rest of his army
to accept battle. The night's rain made the march through the
sticky mud of the young wheat very toilsome. Moore was sent in
advance to break the enemy's onset. With him were the troops
from the 18th Connecticut and 123rd Ohio infantry; the 34th
Massachusetts brought up the artillery, while one company was
detached and thrown out as skirmishers in the woods of the river
bank. The line across the rising ground of another slope in
front was held by Moore. What a moment of awful suspense it must
have been when Breckenridge moved to attack with the veteran
brigades of Echols and Whartons! How the mountain must have sent
back the roaring echoes as McLaughlin's artillery went into
action on a sharp ridge that ran parallel with the pike!
Breckenridge overlapping Moore drove him in confusion to the
rear and with scarcely a pause came in excellent order against
Thoburn's position, but the gallant men of the Union right
checked him, whereupon Imboden, who was in command of
Breckenridge's cavalry, galloped with all possible haste down
Smith creek on the east bank to the bridge on Luray road in
order to get on Siegel's left flank.
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