Here the Confederates met a check. Baldwin, it is true, had to retreat shortly, to escape being taken in right and rear; but Post repulsed an attack upon his front, and Carlin, Woodruff, and Sill threw back their assailants so violently that Polk ordered up his reserves. A second attack met the same fate, though General Sill was killed between the guns of a battery that he was directing. For the third time the gray infantry advanced to the fight, which now involved the whole of Sheridan's division. In frontal attack they were held, but one Union command after another had to retire, to avoid capture under flank attacks. Thus Sheridan's division was dislodged, as had been Johnson's and Davis's.
Up to this juncture the working out of Bragg's plan had fully equalled, if not exceeded, the expectations of the Southern commander. The whole right wing of the Union army had been hurled from position, and some of the commands composing it had been driven for miles. Thousands of Union prisoners and great stores of small arms had been captured, together with many pieces of artillery, which could not be hauled back in the headlong retreat over the rough ground and through the clumps of cedar in which the battlefield abounded. In its further development, or swing, the grand wheel was now threatening the Union centre, and the exultant Confederates entered with confidence upon another distinct stage of the fighting. If the right could be driven still further, or the centre pierced, the Nashville pike would fall into the possession of the Army of the Tennessee, which would then have at its mercy practically the whole Army of the Cumberland. But,--though the prize seemed so near,--it now became evident that new conditions were to be encountered, and that the contest was about to enter upon a new phase.
Confident in the belief that his right wing could and would resist any movement against it, Rosecrans had gone early in the morning to Crittenden's corps, to witness the initiation of his carefully conceived plan. It was 8 o'clock before the leading brigade of Van Cleve's division waded Stone's River at the near-by ford, and began climbing the hill on the other side, with a view to attacking Breckinridge. For a couple of hours firing had been heard on the right, but it gave no uneasiness to the Union commander, who believed that the instructions of the night before were being obeyed. Even when a message from McCook, asking aid in somewhat formal terms, came, Rosecrans was not disturbed, but sent back word that the right must be held.