Important help arrived when John McArthur ordered his 2d Brigade under Colonel Lucius F. Hubbard to support the attack. Hubbard’s men were relatively fresh and soon gained ground on the far left, rapidly approaching Redoubt No. 4 despite the heavy brush, fallen timber, and a severe enemy fire. Simultaneously, a four-gun battery assigned to Hubbard’s brigade galloped up the slope near the still smoldering Redoubt No. 5 and began firing fuzed shell at the second fort. By chance, one of their guns was still loaded with a one-second shell due to the earlier combat. If the gun was fired at the fort, the shell surely would burst over Coon’s and McMillan’s men, realized a gunner. Not having the time or tools to unload this gun, he asked the battery commander what to do. The officer pointed toward the Hillsboro pike where only a long stone wall was visible and shouted to let her go over there, and get back to work in front. Just after the cannon’s discharge the shell burst directly above the stone wall. To everybody’s surprise, up from behind the stone wall jumped what seemed to be a full brigade of Confederate infantry. Within moments they scattered in confusion, remembered an amused cannoneer. 14

  Meanwhile, on the hillside between the two redoubts it seemed to become another race between the infantry and cavalry. Coon yelled to his men “to take those guns before the infantry could get up.” Some of his troopers were even crawling on their hands and knees toward the redoubt. At one point Coon found a sergeant of the 2d Iowa Cavalry halted within twenty yards of the work, heavily panting as if “completely exhausted.” “Sergeant,” shouted Coon, “can you put those colors upon the works?”

  “I can, if supported,” gasped the sergeant. Coon again urged the 2d Iowa’s troopers forward.15

  With the Yankees’ Spencers emitting a continuous rain of fire, the Confederates were unable to take careful aim in shooting back. Captain Lumsden’s gunners kept firing with double charges of canister until the ragged Union line reached the log palisade. Amid hand-to-hand combat the sergeant of the 2d Iowa Cavalry thrust the regiment’s flag above the parapet, but was struck in the abdomen. Nearby, a lieutenant of the 9th Illinois Cavalry shot what he thought was the commander of the redoubt, just as the combined ranks of blue infantry and cavalry swarmed over the walls into the redoubt. Some gunners were still at their posts, but at one Napoleon a cannoneer with the needed primers had already fled. “Captain, he’s gone with the friction primers,” yelled one of Lumsden’s desperate men. The captain shouted back, “Take care of yourselves, boys,” and all who could get away promptly fled down the opposite hillside.16

  Within moments resistance ended. Hatch, Coon, and McMillan soon were present to stare at the bewildered prisoners and smoking wreckage. Altogether they had taken six guns and about 150 prisoners. Coon’s and McMillan’s men seemed so severely depleted that the men virtually collapsed about the captured fort. Meanwhile, Hubbard’s brigade, advancing on the north flank, swept past the redoubt and angled eastward toward the Hillsboro pike. They were now moving beyond the flank of yet another Rebel fort, toward a gray line of infantry visible behind the low stone walls at the pike. Hubbard saw that the Rebels were making a strong effort to rally. His own left flank was unsupported and the enemy infantry seemed likely to attack through the void. Hubbard halted his men and changed front, sending several companies of skirmishers forward. Clearly, he would need help. A. J. Smith hurriedly began looking around for additional troops to continue the overwhelming momentum of his successful attack.17

  The men of John McArthur’s 3d Brigade were wild with excitement, wrote an officer. For several hours they had remained in reserve watching the action in front from a sheltered ridge. Now they wanted part of the glory. “Bring us a fort, bring us a fort,” they shouted when Major General A. J. Smith rode past. “I’ll get a fort for you, [and] you won’t have to wait long for it, either,” he responded. Smith told Colonel Sylvester G. Hill that the third redoubt in front was threatening McArthur’s progress, but to attempt to take the fort with his lone brigade would be a hazardous undertaking. Hill, however, was eager for the fray. “Oh, no,” he responded, “our men will go right up there; nothing can stop them; they will go up without a bit of trouble.” A. J. Smith remained skeptical. He told Hill to stay where he was until he could go and get Hubbard’s Brigade swung around to assist in the attack. Smith rode off, but Hill didn’t wait. “Scarcely a minute had elapsed after General Smith rode away, when Colonel Hill ordered his bugler to sound the charge,” wrote an amazed Iowa colonel.18

  Hill’s men promptly sprang forward and began climbing the steep hill. There was a blaze of fire from the redoubt, and a hail of iron whizzed overhead, but the yelling of Hill’s men seemed to drown out everything. Hill had ordered his brigade to advance without firing, only discharging their single-shot rifle muskets when actually within the fort. Fortunately for Hill and his men, the Confederates again had fired too high. The guns in Redoubt No. 3 couldn’t be depressed sufficiently to fire into the oncoming Union ranks. Hastily, the Rebels attempted to withdraw their four-gun battery, just as some of Hill’s men opened fire. A fusillade of minie balls scattered many of the cannoneers, and two of the guns were abandoned. By the time Hill’s men entered the redoubt nearly all the defenders had fled.19

  A wave of blue engulfed the hilltop, yet as had earlier happened at the other captured forts, there was a new burst of incoming fire. This time it was from the small Redoubt No. 2, located several hundred yards distant across the Hillsboro pike. As officers attempted to round up their men and re-form the ranks, Colonel Hill impulsively shouted to charge the enemy’s second work. No sooner had Hill spoken than a rifle bullet struck him in the forehead, killing him instantly.20

  Due to the noise and confusion, only about two hundred men responded to Hill’s last order. Engulfed in smoke, they dashed forward, led by a Minnesota colonel. Amazingly, before they reached the redoubt nearly all the defenders fled, leaving behind one piece of artillery, a caisson, and various equipment. A Union officer later reported in triumph, “From this point we poured a most galling fire upon the retreating enemy.”21

  A. P. Stewart knew he was in serious trouble. Hood’s concept of isolated, self-sustaining forts without strongly entrenched infantry support had proved to be an outright failure in the face of Thomas’s overwhelming assault. Not only had Hood initially guessed wrong about the location of the attack, but Ector’s Brigade had been detached from the critical extreme southern flank just at the most inopportune time, shortly before Coon’s dismounted cavalry assault on Redoubt No. 5. Furthermore, the reinforcements ordered by Hood from Stephen D. Lee’s corps were late in arriving despite marching along “interior lines.” Redoubts Nos. 4 and 5 had been captured before the arrival of these two brigades from Ed Johnson’s Division.22

  Lee’s troops consisted of Arthur M. Manigault’s Brigade, followed by Zachariah C. Deas’s Brigade, and arriving piecemeal, they were sent toward the stone wall along the Hillsboro pike to plug the gap opposite Redoubt No. 4. Already there was an atmosphere of disaster in the air. Union troops and their six-gun batteries seemed everywhere in front, swarming over the hilltops and captured redoubts.23

  Thus far the contest generally had involved Thomas’s troops attacking small forts defended by artillery and a few infantry supports. Now the battle was on the verge of involving large-scale infantry units—with the Confederates protected only by what natural cover they might find. No earthworks had been prepared along A. P. Stewart’s refused line. Ironically, the men chosen by Stephen D. Lee to go to Stewart’s aid had been Ed Johnson’s Division, the only portion of his corps to be heavily bloodied at Franklin.

  Ed Johnson’s two brigades were hardly in place before they were confronted by McArthur’s infantrymen, moving east toward the Hillsboro pike. Simultaneously, the 2d Iowa light Battery opened fire on Johnson’s line from behind captured Redoubt No. 5. The result, said the disgusted A. P. Stewart, was that Johnson’s men fled after making “but feeble resistance.” Indeed, the gunners of the 2d Iowa Battery could hardly believe it. Under their exploding shell fire a confused mass of enemy broke from the stone wall at the Hillsboro pike and scattered across an open field to the east. Incredibly, when the battery commander elevated his guns to play upon the open field, the shot and shell, plowing up the ground and exploding among the terrified soldiers, caused the larger number of them to run back to the wall for safety. Meanwhile, several of McArthur’s regiments had dashed up to the opposite stone wall and began firing into Ed Johnson’s men. These Rebels “appeared panic stricken and fired badly,” noted a Union lieutenant colonel whose regiment suffered only two men wounded in the entire encounter. Two companies of McArthur’s skirmishers soon charged with fixed bayonets up the Hillsboro pike, capturing a reported 450 prisoners.24

  Johnson’s remaining men streamed back across the field in disarray. Desperately, Stewart attempted to rally them along a small hill behind his primary east-west battle line. Finally, due to the timely arrival of a battery from Loring’s main line at this place, Stewart was able to bring most of them to a halt.25

  Nearby, Major General Edward C. Walthall was attempting to contend with increasingly crucial difficulty. His entire south flank was exposed and outflanked following the loss of Redoubts Nos. 4 and 5, and Walthall hastened to shore up this threatened sector. He pulled Brigadier General Daniel H. Reynolds’s Brigade from his right as supports for Redoubt No. 3 and sent it to the southern flank to keep the Yankees from rolling up the entire refused line. Thereafter, Walthall extended his two remaining brigades farther north to cover Reynolds’s former position, but he soon began to perceive that this line was threatened on three of four sides, and too few troops were available at any one point. Moreover, the Union battle lines now extended beyond Reynolds’s redeployed flank, causing Walthall to send a staff officer to Stewart saying that unless Reynolds received help all was lost. To Walthall, the crucial question was all too apparent. It was simply a matter of whether A. P. Stewart’s makeshift line could hold back the Federals along all three sides until Frank Cheatham’s troops came up and darkness put an end to the conflict.26

  With Brigadier General Joseph A. Cooper’s infantrymen from Schofield’s Twenty-third Corps on the left and the dismounted cavalrymen of Colonel Robert R. Stewart on the right, this newly formed most advanced Federal line swept across the Hillsboro pike into an open field to probe for further enemy resistance. Copper’s men were marching in line of battle at quick time, little more than the pace of a brisk walk, when a battery of Confederate artillery suddenly opened from a knoll in front. It was A. P. Stewart’s hastily repositioned battery from Loring’s line, supported by the re-formed ranks of Ed Johnson’s two brigades.27

  Cooper’s and Stewart’s men were caught in the open field amid bursting shells and a shower of canister. Immediately Cooper’s men raised a cheer and spontaneously ran forward. Several officers tried to stop them, but the men continued running ahead in a ragged, disjoined line, making for the crown of the knoll. There were volleys of musketry and more whizzing canister, but Cooper’s troops scrambled up the slippery slopes yelling at the top of their lungs. Ed Johnson’s men had had enough. Again they fled, abruptly abandoning the battery they were supporting. Cooper’s men quickly overran the crest of the knoll and dashed on after the battery, which was seen hastily attempting to escape eastward through the valley below. Yet these field guns were soon cornered by Stewart’s cavalrymen, many of whom had sprinted around the base of the knoll to cut off the enemy’s escape. Three of the still smoking cannon were captured and hastily swung into action. With Stewart’s cavalrymen serving as gunners, they poured shot after shot into the remnants of Ed Johnson’s wildly fleeing men.28

  A. P. Stewart saw at a glance that the situation was “perilous in the extreme. “Although he had hoped to hold on until Cheatham’s troops came up, there now was little alternative; he ordered Loring and Walthall to retreat.29

  Stewart was too late; Walthall had already given the order to fall back. Not only was A. P. Stewart’s line broken along the third (south) side, but Walthall’s weakened division and many of their supporting troops had been driven back from the stone wall bordering the Hillsboro pike.

  Some of Hubbard’s regiments from McArthur’s division had swung east and north across the pike. Joined by the 6th Tennessee Infantry of Cooper’s brigade, they began sweeping north along the Hillsboro pike, taking many prisoners. Also, one of A. J. Smith’s reserve brigades, eager for the fray and having found a gap in the lines, ran forward beyond the Hillsboro pike. Here they saw the Confederates fleeing in wild disorder. “It was a splendid scene to see them scatter in confusion through a cornfield that was so muddy that it almost was impossible to travel, and then to see them turn back, as we supposed to stand and fight—but only to surrender.… Our regiment took the most of them, and without firing a gun.” So excited were the men of the 33d Wisconsin that a corporal said their officers could barely halt them there.30

  Adding to the overwhelming pressure on A. P. Stewart, the long-idle Fourth Corps under Thomas Wood had begun attacking along Loring’s front soon after fighting intitiated by A. J. Smith on the southern and western perimeters had begun. About 4:00 P.M. Wood ordered Brigadier General Washington L. Elliott to attack with his division and capture the main Confederate line anchored by Redoubt No. 1. Yet Elliott delayed in making the assault, “waiting for General [A. J.] Smith to come up and connect with his right.” When about a half hour had passed and no movement had occurred, Wood impatiently ordered Nathan Kimball’s division forward to attack east of the Hillsboro pike. Kimball’s attack was straight across a muddy, 200-yard-wide cornfield at the heavily entrenched line in front, defended by Loring’s three brigades. Kimball had two brigades in the front line, Kirby’s and Grose’s, and they stumbled up the slopes fully laden with knapsacks and equipment. An officer noted how their progress was slowed by the burdensome packs. About seventy paces from the enemy line he halted the line and ordered the knapsacks unslung. Then the Union battle line fairly raced for Loring’s works.31

  Most of Loring’s men were gone by the time Kirby’s wildly yelling soldiers, followed by Grose’s ranks, swept over the entrenchments. At 4:35 P.M. Kirby claimed four captured cannon, hundreds of prisoners, and a wide variety of small arms, trophies, and abandoned equipment that littered the ground.32

  On their right flank, Elliott’s division had belatedly joined in the assault and, spearheaded by Emerson Opdycke’s prominent brigade, they rapidly approached Loring’s works in the vicinity of Redoubt No. 1. Opdycke’s men, with Lane’s brigade on their left, arrived at the entrenchments only to find them already in the possession of their skirmish line. A lieutenant of the 36th Illinois, William Hall, with twenty-two skirmishers had crept along the stone wall bordering the west side of the Hillsboro pike until beyond Redoubt No. 1. Observing the advance of Colonel Edward H. Wolfe’s Brigade of A. J. Smith’s corps along the same front, and the men of their own Fourth Corps attacking Loring’s line to the north, Hall perceived an opportunity. Fragments of the Confederate line had begun to pull out, streaming to the rear from the vicinity of the salient angle. Hall yelled to his men: “Now, boys, is our time! I believe we can take that Rebel fort—the Johnnies are more than half whipped. How many of you are ready to go in?”33

  There was a shout of assent, and Hall and his handful of men bolted across the pike, scaled the wall in the rear of the redoubt, and flung themselves at the astonished defenders. There was little resistance. A few of the Confederate artillerists fought with revolvers, but they were quickly subdued at the point of Hall’s bayonets. Just behind Hall’s men were the skirmishers of Wolfe’s brigade, who rushed through the redoubt and claimed their share in the capture of three artillery pieces and forty prisoners. Both lines of Federal skirmishers now found themselves burdened with trophies and prisoners. A Union corporal grabbed a battle flag, and Lieutenant Hall secured the sword of an Alabama officer. In the span of about ten minutes, A. P. Stewart’s last remaining redoubt had been taken, and its guns turned on the fleeing remnant of its infantry supports.34

  It was a “full stampede,” wrote a Confederate soldier. A. P. Stewart’s entire corps was now in utter flight, streaming east and south along the adjacent Granny White pike. One of Stewart’s staff officers, Captain William D. Gale, saw Mary Bradford run out of her house and shout to the fleeing men to stop and fight. Yet they were so panic-stricken they refused to halt.35

 

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