Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/352

320 withstood their repeated, determined onsets in great force. They also held their ground firmly until after all the cartridge-boxes of the living and dead and wounded had been emptied, and withdrew only when the rest of our line fell back. The brigade on the right, under Colonel Lytle, was assailed at the same time and as vigorously as the centre. It succeeded, however, in repulsing every front attack up to between four and five o'clock, when a strong column of the enemy, concealed by the undulations of the ground, managed to pass around its right, and suddenly, almost without warning, fell upon the flank and rear of the brigade and drove it before them in much disorder. Colonel Lytle was severely wounded and taken prisoner. This turning movement would not have been possible if General Gilbert had not ordered General Sheridan to fall back for half a mile from the position Colonel David McCook's brigade had wrested from the enemy in the morning, in which it had connected with Lytle's right. The rebel success involved the gravest peril to McCook's whole corps — indeed, threatened it with utter defeat and destruction. This calamity would surely have befallen it had not, at the critical moment, the rebel move against Lytle been arrested by counter-attacks from Gilbert's corps. How this came about will best appear from the following extract from my account of the battle in the Tribune:

General McCook states that at 3 P.M. he dispatched Captain Horace W. Fisher of his staff to the nearest commander of troops for assistance. He first met General Schoepf marching at the head of his division, and reported his condition to him. General Schoepf expressed a desire to act at once, as he was moving to the front under orders for that same purpose. He requested Captain Fisher to see General Gilbert, the commander of the corps, who was riding with the column. Gilbert said that he was very sorry to learn that General McCook was in so pressed a condition, but that he could not send him reinforcements without special orders from General Buell. Owing to the delay in first hunting for General Gilbert and next in finding General Buell, the