Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/154

 which threw them in confusion and drove them back precipitately.” Four divisions of the rebel right were thus used up. The fifth, Cheatham's, was spared and kept in reserve. While Breckinridge and the three brigades of Walker were contending against Baird and his supports, Cleburne and Walker's other brigades made futile efforts in front of Johnson's, Palmer's, and Reynolds's divisions. These, like Baird, acted mainly on the defensive, checking the enemy by a very heavy infantry and artillery fire when ever he tried to rush forward. A rain of bullets, shot, and shell was poured forth incessantly from our breastworks, the front infantry ranks doing the firing and the rear ones the loading. All the rebel reports speak of our fire as more fearful than any they had ever before witnessed. Only General Willich, with his usual impetuosity, sallied forth at the head of one of his regiments, and followed the re treating enemy for a mile, inflicting considerable loss on him. General Thomas himself did not think of striking a counterblow after the rebels' offensive had been repelled and disappeared from his front, for Breckinridge's rear attack had much shaken and confused his command, and, moreover, his supply of ammunition had grown short. But the danger to our left had now fully passed, and the rebels did not disturb it again till near the close of the day.

The struggle there had not wholly ceased when an all but fatal turn took place on our right. General Longstreet relates that he arranged the line of the left wing so that Stewart's division formed his right, followed by Bushrod Johnson's, Hood's, Hindman's, and Preston's divisions as the centre and left. Only three brigades of Hood's having arrived, Kershaw's and Humphrey's brigades of McLaws's division were also placed under his command. The divisions were formed with two brigades in the front and the others behind them in supporting distance. When the action on the Confederate right had been raging for some time, without any apparent progress, Longstreet grew