against a superior force of veterans, in the dark, and without notice, or time to get ready! They had no support from regular troops, for, though some were near at hand, they did not arrive till the fight was over.
After their repulse the enemy went back by the road they had come until they reached the Ridge Church. Here they struck off to the right and made for Hungary Station, on the Fredericksburg railroad, reaching that point about daybreak. They seized a citizen of the neighborhood and demanded that he should pilot them; but leading through a piece of pines he made his escape, and left them to find their way out as best they could. The Yankees unquestionably hung a negro, belonging to Mr. Weems, whom they had as a pilot, but who led them astray by getting lost himself.
As an incident of the fight near Richardson's farm, and of the darkness which prevailed, we may mention, that a Yankee charged the fence just where it passed on the edge of a deep pit of an abandoned ice-house. Horse and rider went in; the former was killed by the fall, the latter drawn out a prisoner the next
