In an instant the
gaps were closed, and in another a hundred more were opened. Every yard
of the advance was costing the assailants a full company of men--every
rod at least half a regiment. They wavered, halted and fell back to the
shelter of the narrow belt of timber. The attack had failed, the flank
of the enemy had not been struck.
But the other divisions of the army? Sent in as ours had been, some one
of them must surely strike the opposing flank, unless Bragg's whole army
had crossed the river and was in position before Rosecrans moved.
Palmer's division held its place, fired its sixty rounds of cartridges
into the wood where the unseen foe was, and waited for the attack of the
succeeding division which should strike Bragg's flank. But we waited in
vain. When Rosecrans's last division was forming its echelons it was
itself enveloped on its outer flank by the active foe. Rosecrans's line,
as he formed it a division at a time, had been constantly outflanked.
The battle was a failure thus far. We could all see that, and some of us
saw how nearly it became an irretrievable disaster. Hazen's brigade had
been withdrawn to replenish its ammunition after the attack, and was
lying along the Rossville road. The men were filling their
cartridge-boxes, and the captains were counting their diminished ranks
and noting who were dead and who but wounded. Out at the front the fight
still went on, but in a desultory way.
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