Firing having now ceased in my front, and being the only mounted officer or mounted man present, I left the Fifteenth Kentucky and One Hundred and Fourth Illinois temporarily in charge of Colonel Taylor, and hurried back to see General Thomas or Negley, and urge the necessity for more troops to enable me to re-establish the line. On the way, and before proceeding far, I met the Second Brigade of our division, Colonel Stanley, advancing to my support. Had it reached me an hour earlier, I feel assured that I would have been able to maintain the position which I had just been compelled to abandon. I directed Colonel Stanley to form a line of battle at once, at right angles with the road and on its left, facing north. Returning to Colonel Taylor, I ordered him to fall back with the Fifteenth Kentucky and One Hundred and Fourth Illinois, and form in rear of the left of Stanley's line, as a support to it. Soon after we had got our lines adjusted, the enemy pressed back the skirmishers of the Fifteenth Kentucky and One Hundred and Fourth Illinois, who had not been retired with the regiments, and, following them up, drove in also the skirmish line of Stanley's brigade, whereupon the Eleventh Michigan (Colonel Stoughton), and the Eighteenth Ohio (Lieutenant-Colonel Grosvenor), gave him a well-directed volley, which brought him to a halt. Our whole line then opened at short range, and he wavered. I gave the order to advance, then to charge, and the brigade rushed forward with a yell, drove the enemy fully one-fourth of a mile, strewing the ground with his dead and wounded, and capturing many prisoners. Among the latter was General Adams, the commander of a Louisiana brigade.
Finding now that Colonel Taylor had not followed the movement with his regiment and the One Hundred and Fourth Illinois, and seeing the necessity for some support for a single line so extended, I hastened to the rear, and, being unable to find Taylor where I had left him, I induced four regiments, of I know not what command, which I found idle in the woods, to move forward and form a second line.
At this time Captain Wilson, whom I had sent to General Negley some time before the Second Brigade reached me, to inform him of my position and need of assistance, returned, and brought from him a verbal order to retire to the hill in the rear and join him. Convinced that the withdrawal of the troops at this time from the position occupied might endanger the whole left wing of the army, I thought best to defer the execution of this order until I could see General Negley and explain to him the necessity of maintaining and reinforcing it with the other brigade of our division. But before Captain Wilson could find either Colonel Taylor, who had in charge the Fifteenth Kentucky and One Hundred and Fourth Illinois, or General Negley, the enemy made a fierce attack on Stanley's brigade and forced it back. The unknown brigade which I had posted in the rear to support it retired with unseemly haste, and without firing a shot.