How little expectation there had been of fighting a battle that day, especially on the line where the extreme outposts chanced to be, and how suddenly all was changed, is aptly shown by what was happening in Emory's camp when, at a quarter before four o'clock, he received Franklin's order to go to the front. The wagons of the Thirteenth Corps were in the road in the act of passing the lines of the Nineteenth Corps on the way to join their proper command. Emory's wagons had been with him for some little time and several of the quartermasters were even engaged in issuing clothing when the summons came. There had been no heavy firing as yet, such as indicates a battle, and the exact degree of urgency may be best represented by saying that the marching orders were delivered to Emory in writing by a mounted orderly and were in these words: "Move your infantry immediately to the front, leaving one regiment as guard to your batteries and train. If your train has got up, you will take two days' rations and the cooking utensils." The language of this order, which may fairly be taken as an authentic reflection of the oral message from Banks, on which it was directly based, would have justified Emory in taking an hour or more for the issue of the rations; but Emory, whose nature it was to forecast danger, had from the first hour of the campaign been apprehensive of some sudden attack that should find the army unprepared; and thus it was that, merely stopping to take a double ration of hard bread, twelve minutes later the head of his column filed into the road and marched to the front. At this hour the battle was just beginning, and the first sounds, rolling to the rear, served to quicken the march of Emory's men. About a quarter before five he was met by an aide-de-camp with orders to hasten, coupled with the first direct information that an engagement was in progress. A mile farther on an ambulance was met bearing Ransom to the rear. Emory exchanged a few words with the wounded officer, and then ordered his division to take the double-quick. A mile beyond, the usual rabble of camp followers and stragglers was encountered, and soon the road was filled with the swollen stream of fugitives, crying that the day was lost.