sentences:  The freedmen continued their frantic efforts to ferry as many as possible across the stream on the makeshift raft, but when Wheeler's cavalry arrived in force, those refugees who had not made it to the eastern bank, or drowned in the attempt, were enslaved once more.Davis's orders infuriated several of the Union men who witnessed the ensuing calamity, among them Major James A. Connolly and Chaplain John J. Hight.Connolly described the events in a letter to the Senate Military Commission, which found its way into the press.