ss he
changed front forward on his tenth company, yet held his fire until
he could see the shoulders and almost the backs of the enemy; then,
pouring in a hot fire, and being immediately supported by the 11th
Indiana, part of the 3d Massachusetts, and the 176th New York,
which had quickly rallied from Sharpe's reverse, the attacking
force was driven back in disorder; but unfortunately, in retiring
it swept across the remains of Molineux's left centre, which had
been cut off in the gully, and took many prisoners, especially from
among the officers who had stood to their posts through everything.

Just as when victory had seemed about to alight on the standard of
the Union, the very perch itself had been suddenly and rudely shaken
by the tread of Early's charging columns; so now, at the precise
moment when defeat--bitter, perhaps disastrous defeat--seemed
inevitable, the fortunes of the battle were once more reversed,
and the day was suddenly saved by the prompt and orderly advance
of Russell into the fatal gap. As he changed front from the wood
to the right and swept on in splendid array, it happened that the
charging line of Early, already disarranged by its own success,
offered its right flank to Russell's front. Russell himself,
bravely leading his division, fell, yet not until he had struck
the blow that gave the victory to the defenders of his country,--a
noble sacrifice in a noble cause.

But on the right a danger almost equally serious menaced the flank
of Emory, for when Birge's men came streaming back, Shunk, who had
been supporting Birge without having men enough to cover the whole
ground, found his left uncovered to Gordon by the giving way of
Sharpe, while at the same time his line was nearly enfiladed from
the right by a section or battery of Fitzhugh Lee's horse artillery
on the north bank of the Red Bud. Seeing all this, Emory instantly
ordered his own old division to deploy at the top of its speed,
and to make good the broken line. "Have this thing stopped at
once," were the terse words of his command to Dwight. Once more,
as at the Sabine Cross-Roads, the 1st brigade was called upon the
yield up its leading regiment for a sacrifice, and again the lot
fell to New York, yet this time upon the 114th, and upon not one
of all the good veteran battalions that held the field on that
19th of September--if indeed upon any in all the armies of the
Union--could the choice have rested more securely. To the