order to charge was given by General Rosecrans in person, and, like hounds from the leash, the division sprang forward, reserving their fire for close quarters. It was the crisis in the battle. If this line was broken all was lost. Every man rose to the occasion and proved himself a hero. Steadily, as a majestic river moves on its resistless way, the line swept forward, sending a shower of bullets to the front. The left was now exposed to attack, and, riding rapidly to the ford, General Rosecrans inquired who commanded the brigade. “I do, sir,” said Colonel Price. “Will you hold this ford?” “I will try, sir.” “Will you hold this ford?” “I will die right here.” “Will you hold this ford?” for the third time thundered the general. “Yes, sir,” said the colonel. “That will do”; and away galloped the general to where Palmer was contending against long odds for the possession of the Round Forrest in the center of the line. All along the line from Van Cleve’s right to Wood’s left, the space gradually narrowed between the contending hosts. The weak had gone to the rear; no room now for any but brave men, and no time given for new dispositions; every man who had a stomach for fighting was engaged on the firing line. From a right angle the Confederate left had been pressed back by Van Cleve and Harker and the Pioneers to an angle of forty-five degrees in less than that number of minutes. This advance brought Van Cleve within view of Rousseau, who at once requested him to form on his right. Harker, entering the woods on the left of Van Cleve, passed to his right, and now closed up on his flank. The enemy had fallen back stubbornly fighting, and made a stand on the left of Cheatham. Brave old Van Cleve, his white hair streaming in the wind, the blood flowing from a gaping wound in his foot, rode gallantly along the line to where Harker was stiffly holding his position, with his right “in the air.” Bidding him to hold fast to every inch of ground, he rode to Swallow’s Battery, which was working with the rapidity of a steam fire-engine, “Don’t let them get your guns, Swallow!” he shouted, as he dashed by on his way to the left, where Sam Beatty, heavy and impassive, was pounding away with his minie rifles at a line of men who seemed always on the point of advancing. The brigades of Stanley and Miller having fallen back, as previously described, and the entire strength of Cheatham and three brigades of Withers and Cleburne having fallen upon Rousseau, he had fallen back into the open field, where he found Van Cleve. Loomis’s and Guenthers’ batteries, double-shotted with canister, were posted on a ridge, and as the Confederate line advanced, opened upon it with terrible force. Men fell like ripened grain before a reaper, but the line moved straight ahead. The field, swept by a storm of iron hail, was covered with dead and wounded men. The deep bass of the artillery was mingled with the higher notes of the minie rifles, while the brief pauses could be distinguished the quickly-spoken orders of the commanding officers, and the groans of the wounded. It was the full orchestra of battle. But there is a limit of human endurance. The Confederate brigades, now melted to three-fourths their original numbers, wavered and fell back; again and again they reformed in the woods and advanced to the charge, only to meet with a bloody repulse. Four deliberate and sustained attempts were made to carry the position, and each failed. While these events were following each other in rapid succession, and some of them occurring simultaneously, the Left Wing had not only held its position, but had furnished three brigades to repel the advance of Bragg’s left upon the rear of the army.

While Colonel Hazen was gallantly defending the left of the line from nine o’clock in the morning until two in the afternoon, the fight raged no less furiously on his immediate right. Here a line composed of two brigades of Palmer’s division and one of Wood’s, filled out by the remains of Sheridan’s divisions, who, after they had replenished their ammunition, formed behind the railroad embankment at right angles with Hazen’s brigade, which alone retained its position upon the original line. Farther to the right was Rousseau, with Van Cleve and Harker on his right. I leave to more graphic pens to describe the grand pyrotechnics of the battle field at this supreme moment when victory hung evenly balanced. Past the crowd of fugitives from the Right Wing the undaunted soldiers of the Left and Center had swept “with the light of battle in their faces,” and now in strong array they stood like a rock-bound coast beating back the tide which threatened to engulf the rear. Along this line rode Rosecrans with face illuminated by the light of exalted courage; Thomas, calm, inflexible as a mighty judge, from whose gaze skulkers shrank abashed; Crittenden, cheerful and full of hope, complimenting his men as he rode along the lines; Rousseau, whose fiery impetuosity no disaster could quell; Palmer, with a stock of cool courage and presence of mind equal to any emergency; Wood, suffering from a wound in his heel, stayed in the saddle, but had lost the jocularity which usually characterized him. “Good-bye, General, ‘we will all meet at the hatter’s’ as one coon said to another when the dogs were after them,” he said to Crittenden early in the action, but at ten o’clock a minie ball struck his boot and lacerated his heel—his good humor was gone for the day. “Are we going about it right now, General?” asked Morton, as he glanced along the blazing line of muskets to where the Chicago battery quivered with the rapidity of its discharges. “All right, fire low,” said the chief as he dashed by. Colonel Grose, always in his place, had command of the Ammen brigade, the “glorious Tenth” of Shiloh memory, with which, and, with Hazen’s and Cruft’s brigades, the gallant and lamented Nelson had swept, like an avenging Nemesis, upon the right of Beauregard’s victorious army, driving it back to its base at Corinth.

After the formation of this line at noon it never receded; as has been stated, the right swung around until, at two o’clock, about one-half of the lost ground had been retaken. The artillery, more than fifty guns, was massed in the open ground behind the angle in the line; twenty-eight guns had been captured, when they poured a continuous torrent of iron missiles upon the Confederate line. They could not fire amiss. The fire from Cox’s Battery was directed upon Hanson’s brigade across the river, where Cobb, with Napoleons, returned the compliment with zeal and precision. Schaefer’s brigade having received a new stock of cartridges, formed on Palmer’s right, where later the brave commander received his death wound, the last of Sheridan’s brigade commanders who had fallen during the day.

At four o’clock it became evident to the Confederate commander that his only hope of success lay in a charge upon the Union left, which, by its overpowering weight, should carry everything before it. The movement of Cleburne to the left in support of McCown had deprived him of reserves; but Breckinridge had four brigades unemployed on the right, and these were peremptorily ordered across the river to the support of General Polk. The error made by General Polk in making an attack with the two brigades that first arrived upon the field, instead of awaiting the arrival of General Breckinridge with the remaining brigades, was so palpable as to render an excuse for failure necessary. This was easily found in the tardy execution of Bragg’s order by Breckinridge, and resulted in sharp criticism of the latter. The Third Kentucky, now nearly annihilated, and its Colonel, Sam McKee, killed, was relieved by