Thus, while Baird's lines were shaken by the overwhelming concentration against them, and Brannan was facing and fighting superior numbers, matters were hot for Thomas, who was slowly moving to and fro along his divisions and closely watching them. Baird was restoring his lines under fire and in the face of a flank attack. Croxton's men, with fresh ammunition, were holding their place. Connell's brigade was immovable, and poured its fire into the very faces of the enemy. Van Derveer, on the left, was busily maneuvering to meet flank attacks, and fighting desperately, but with unvarying success.
At this moment, when Baird was scarcely able to maintain position, and must have soon yielded to numbers, Johnson, of McCook's corps, came on the field from Crawfish Springs, and was led by Thomas to the right of Baird. Here, with the brigades of Willich and Baldwin on the front and Dodge in reserve, Johnson, by heavy fighting, relieved the pressure on Baird, restored the line, and checked Bragg's new center.
Following came Palmer, most opportunely ordered forward by Crittenden from Lee & Gordon's, who saw plainly from the development of furious battle on the Union left that troops would surely be wanted there. Palmer followed Johnson into line, and under the personal direction of Rosecrans the brigades of Hazen, Cruft, and Grose were formed in echelon and ordered forward, immediately encountering Cheatham's men and becoming fiercely engaged. Hazen on the left fell with great vigor on Walker's left and relieved Starkweather, of Baird, from precarious position. At the same time Van Derveer was thrown by Brannan on the right of Walker and by terrific fighting crushed Walthall's line and drove it well back into the forests.
It was here that the Ninth Ohio, the German Turner regiment of Bob McCook—both regiment and commander of glorious memory—recaptured the regular battery and brought it into the Union lines. The regiment had been with the trains during the night march and it was chafing far in the rear when Van Derveer sent for it. Sore was his need. The repeated attacks of the enemy on his front and flank in the attempt to crush the Union left and reach the Lafayette road in its rear were becoming so frequent and heavy that, in spite of the fact that every man under him was fighting where he stood and yielding no inch of ground, it seemed as if the limit of human endurance even for iron veterans must soon be reached. Then from the near distance came the well-known hurrah of the Ninth advancing from the right. As all waited to welcome the head of its column, its charging shout was heard to the front of its line of advance, followed at once by rapid musketry, and then their great "hurrah" of victory. The story is brief. Colonel Kammerling at the head of his regiment, coming on at double-quick, saw to his right and front the captured artillery of the regulars, just taken by Govan. Without orders he halted his line, fronted it, and with the command "Links Schwengket," swung it to the left, faced toward the hill where the battery stood in the hands of its captors, and with a sweeping charge drove the rebels back, bayoneting some among the guns, and rushed with guns and many prisoners back to the Union line. A few minutes after he came in on the run to Van Derveer, just in time to take part in the last and supreme effort of the enemy to crush that unyielding left. Forrest's men had passed beyond Van Derveer's left and formed for assault on his front, and also directly on his flank. But the vigilant skirmishers and prisoners taken by them made known the movement. The left was thrown back in time, and the line presented an obtuse angle opening toward the enemy. Into this, and heavily against the left of it, Forrest hurled his columns, four deep. On came these men in gray in magnificent lines, which showed clearly through the open forest bending their faces before the sleet of the storm, and firing hotly as they advanced. As they came within the range of the oblique fire from Van Derveer's right they halted within forty yards of his left and for a few moments poured in a destructive fire. A wheel of Smith's regular battery, and of a section of Church's guns which had reported, brought them where they poured a nearly enfilading fire of cannister down those long lines, standing bravely there and fighting almost under the mouths of the guns. Thomas and Brannan and Van Derveer were looking on and encouraging the line. It had seemed almost beyond the probabilities to hold it till those well served batteries opened. An instant later it seemed as if the lines of gray had sunk into the earth. When the smoke lifted from the third round the front was clear of everything but the heaps of dead and wounded, and the work of the day at that point of the Union left was done.
The fight still raged bitterly, however, along the lines of Johnson, and of Palmer to the right of him. Brannan and Baird were withdrawn from the front which they had held, the former being sent toward the center to provide against contingencies there, and the latter posted to prevent any movement toward the Lafayette road at McDaniel's. Forrest and Cheatham's brigades of infantry next attacked Johnson (of McCook), who then held the advanced portion of the Union left. Here the contest soon became furious again, partly on the ground of Baird's morning battle. Maney's splendid brigade rushed to a hand-to-hand fight, but was borne back. Wright, Strahl, Jackson, and Smith, with their brigades, all under Cheatham, each delivered bold and most courageous attacks, but without carrying the Union line. Rosecrans's army, under the successive hammering of the Confederate onslaughts, was fast being solidly formed from left to right. Willich, Baldwin, and Dodge, of Johnson, and Hazen, Cruft, and Grose, of Palmer, were fairly aligned, having fought themselves forward into good positions.
The battle next fell heavily on the right of Palmer, as Bragg at last had his whole army in rapid motion toward his right. As Palmer's ammunition began to fail, Reynolds moved up to his right and rear, and made most excellent dispositions just east of the Lafayette road. Upon call, he pushed Willich and Edward King in on Palmer's right, and at once became hotly engaged. Crittenden sent Van Cleve with Samuel Beatty's and Dick's brigades to the right of Reynold's, leaving Barnes's brigade with General Wood at Lee & Gordon's.
As fast as the Union line could be extended to the left it became sorely pressed by Bragg's troops, then well massed west of the Chickamauga. General Davis, from McCook, pressed rapidly to the left and was sent in near Vineyard's. At 3 o'clock Wood was ordered from Lee & Gordon's to the field of the growing fight. As Bragg still had some forces opposite this point, General Lytle's brigade, of Sheridan's division, was directed to relieve Wood and hold the crossing. Thus in six hours from the time Bragg was directing his army on Crittenden at Lee & Gordon's, a single brigade, posted there only from prudence, served for all demands against Confederate movement from that direction. This indicates how completely Bragg had been driven from his plan.
Wood and Davis had not been dispatched a moment too soon. Van Cleve, Davis, and Wood were confronted with solid masses of Bragg's concentrated troops, and the scenes and splendid fighting of the morning at the left were repeated hereby these divisions. Stewart, Johnson, and Preston, of Buckner's corps, and Hindman, of Longstreet's advance, were assaulting these lines. Davis had been ordered to wheel in on the enemy's left flank, and this movement led to one of the bravest and bloodiest contests of the day in front of Vineyard's. Wood advanced his lines into the vortex just when Davis was hardest pressed, and, when all seemed about to be compelled to yield, Sheridan appeared on the flank, and Wilder's mounted brigade came up in the rear. Every division of the Union army was in line except the reserve under Granger, which was some miles away toward Ringgold, with orders to hold Red House bridge.
The battle along Rosecrans's center and right waxed hotter and fiercer. He seemed everywhere present and he was everywhere alert. Van Cleve encountered the left of Stewart marching to relieve Cheatham, and a fight muzzle to muzzle took place between Clayton of Stewart's and the two brigades of Van Cleve, Sam Beatty and Dick.
Reynolds, by magnificent generalship and fighting, restored the broken line in his front, and firmly established himself there. His brigades, under Turchin and Edward King, covered themselves with laurels as they swayed back and forth on the tides of battles which rushed and swirled over all that portion of the field.