Howard seemed to have no curiosity himself, as he sent out no parties; but Sickles and Pleasonton had their spies and detachments on the watch, and these came in constantly with the information, which was duly transmitted to Howard, that Jackson was actually coming.

Schurz also became uneasy and sent out parties to reconnoitre.

General Noble, at that time Colonel of the Seventeenth Connecticut Infantry, two companies of whose regiment were on the picket line there, writes as follows: "The disaster resulted from Howard's and Devens' utter disregard and inattention under warnings that came in from the front and flank all through the day.

Horseman after horseman rode into my post and was sent to headquarters with the information that the enemy were heavily marching along our front and proceeding to our right; and last of all an officer reported the rebels massing for attack.

Howard scouted the report and insulted the informants, charging them with telling a story that was the offspring of their imaginations or their fears." If this be true, there has been but one similar case in our annals, and that was the massacre of the garrison of Fort Sims, by the savages, in 1813, near Mobile, Alabama; soon after a negro had been severely flogged by the commanding officer for reporting that he had seen Indians lurking around the post.
Adjutant Wilkenson, of the same regiment, confirms General Noble's statement and says, "Why a stronger force was not sent out as skirmishers and the left of our line changed to front the foe is more than I am able to understand." General Schimmelpfennig, commanding a brigade of Schurz's division, says he sent out a reconnoissance and reported the hostile movements fully two hours before the enemy charged.
The Germans were bitterly denounced for this catastrophe, I think very unjustly, for in the first place less than one-half the Eleventh Corps were Germans, and in the second place the troops that did form line and temporarily stop Jackson's advance were Germans; principally Colonel Adolph Buschbeck's brigade of Steinwehr's division, aided by a few regiments of Schurz's division, who gave a volley or two.