Helaman gives us an amazingly accurate rendition of the effect of the time of day on this type of pursuit. Here we have three armies moving in the same direction, each with an incentive to move quickly. Nevertheless, when night falls, the pursuit stops, and even the flight stops. Helaman’s troops are in grave danger because he knows that he cannot withstand the Lamanite army that is pursuing them, but he still stops and makes camp. It appears that all armies stopped and made camp. This is an accurate depiction of the difficulties of large-scale movements of troops at night in Mesoamerica.
This is an area with few roads, and therefore the armies are marching on uneven terrain with various typical obstacles from natural vegetation and topography. Mesoamerican battles seldom included night maneuvers. However, Mesoamerican battles typically commenced at dawn, and here again we see the accurate depiction of the resumption of the chase at dawn on the next day (see Ross Hassig, 1988, p. 95 for a description or the timing of battles).