Whole brigades and regiments were cut to pieces or thrown in confusion.
Some of the regiments resisted for a few moments, and then they too were carried away in the flight.
The Mayor said hopefully that the Petrograd regiments were ashamed of their actions; propaganda was making headway.
Hundreds of police, regiments of soldiers and scores of volunteers were sent into the doomed district to warn the people to flee.
When the last of the Southern regiments disappeared in the deep woods, Dick and many of those around him sank exhausted upon the ground.
The enterprise would be far more arduous if it were deferred till the King, by remodelling boroughs and regiments, had procured a Parliament and an army on which he could rely.
But Farragut had with his expedition only two regiments of troops, and the rebel batteries were situated at such an elevation that the guns of the Union fleet could not be raised sufficiently to silence them.
They retreated rather as victors than defeated men, presenting a bristling front to the enemy until their regiments were lost in the forest, and beating off every attempt of skirmishers or cavalry to molest them.
This left Vicksburg as the single barrier to the complete opening of the Mississippi, and that barrier was defended by only six batteries and a garrison of six Confederate regiments at the date of Farragut's arrival before it.
I received my dearest Mamma's letter on Monday last, but could not answer it then, by reason I was at camp to see the regiments off to go on board, and was too late for the post; but am very sorry, dear Mamma, that you doubt my love, which I'm sure is as sincere as ever any son's was to his mother.