three o'clock
The loss of the officers had been prodigious . Eight generals were killed and thirty wounded , and nearly two thousand officers . The colonel and majors of Julian 's regiment had fallen , and a captain , who was but sixth on the list when the battle began , now commanded . Between three o'clock and dusk the men were engaged in binding up each other 's wounds , eating what food they carried in their haversacks , and searching for more in those of the fallen . Few words were spoken , and even when the order came to evacuate the position and retire to the ground they had left that morning , there was not a murmur ; for the time no one seemed to care what happened , or what became of him . Once on the ground where they were to bivouac , fresh life was infused into their veins . The chill evening air braced up their nerves ; great fires were lighted with brushwood , broken cartridge-boxes , and the fragments of gun-carriages and waggons ; and water was brought up from the stream .