Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/138

 on the east side of the Chattanooga road.” Bushrod Johnson, between three and four o'clock, fell upon Barnes's and Davis's brigades, made them, after a stout resistance, give way in partial disorder, and followed them to and beyond the Chattanooga road. At this juncture, two brigades under General Wood, which General Crittenden had asked and obtained permission to send to the succor of Van Cleve in his precarious plight, became also involved. Wood had orders to go in on Van Cleve's right, but, meeting Davis on the way and hearing from him of his distress, and seeing the evidence of it in a stream of fugitives from Heg's brigade that came pouring out of the woods, he directed Colonel Harker's brigade to form in line and push forward in an oblique direction and engage the advancing enemy. The brigade succeeded in checking him after a hot fight in which it lost very heavily. Wood's other brigade, under Colonel Buell, got ready to support Carlin's, holding Davis's right, and was about to advance when the latter brigade was also driven back by the rebels. The fugitive crowd got mixed up with Buell's men and swept them along with it some distance beyond the Chattanooga road, when the enemy was stopped by the fire of Wilder's brigade, which was lying there dismounted, and the concentrated fire of twenty-six guns which General Crittenden had ordered to open. General Sheridan had been directed by Rosecrans to hurry from Lee and Gordon's Mills with two brigades to the relief of our right, and arrived just in time to help check the pursuit of Davis's and Wood's men. Colonel Bradley's brigade of his division formed hastily, and, after a short and severe fight, in which it recaptured a Federal battery, succeeded in driving the enemy back to the east side of the Chattanooga road. Davis's and Wood's commands then re-formed and regained their former position.

General Negley's division had been left to guard the fords on our extreme right, while the other three divisions of the Fourteenth Corps made their night move to the left.