Race to Richmond

The Confederates shattered the Union line at Duncannon Road, striking Cruft's brigade with a rolling musket volley, reloading, leaping a fence, and scattering his men. Manson's brigade also collapsed, and the 71st Indiana Infantry lost so many officers that it nearly ceased to exist as an organized unit. As the exhausted Union line crumbled, Federal troops fled toward Richmond, sweeping civilian sightseers from the battlefield into the panicked retreat and worsening the chaos. Cruft reported that the fleeing masses drifted up the road and through the fields toward Richmond while he and General Manson, aided by staff and field officers, tried in vain to stop the panic. By late afternoon, the remnants of the demoralized Union army regrouped on the south edge of Richmond, in and near the cemetery, badly shaken but not yet willing to admit defeat.

Kentucky · United States