[349] exposed portion of the line where it made an angle at the peach orchard, and this point of Sickles' line was held by eight regiments belonging to Birney's and Humphrey's divisions. The assault was made by McLaws' left, supported by Anderson's division; and though it was disputed by the Union regiments with very great stubbornness, the position was at length carried, and the key-point remained in the enemy's hands.
Now certainly, if not before, was seen the faultiness of the advanced line; for the enemy having burst through the centre, was free to penetrate the interval and assail in detail the disrupted forces right and left. To meet this menace, that portion of the line which was to the right of the peach orchard—that is, Humphreys' division and Graham's brigade—swung back its exposed left, thus making a change of front to face southward instead of westward, and the batteries on the forward crest under Major McGilvray were retired firing. That portion of the line which was to the left of the peach Orchard—namely, the brigades of Tilton and Sweitzer, that had been sent out to re-enforce Birney—being now not only assailed in front but having its right flank exposed, fell back; and this also involved Birney's front.
It is rare that a field of battle displays, in a more striking manner than was here presented, the influence of key-points in determining tactical results. The possession of the peach orchard enabled the enemy to meet and repulse a succession of attacks, and the history of the action on the left presents an extraordinary series of efforts to maintain ground now become untenable—one re-enforcement after another being thrown forward only to be driven back in a whirling vortex of advancing and retiring lines.
The original front of Birney had already gone out and disappeared, and Barnes' two brigades sent forward in support had been repulsed. Hereupon Caldwell's division was detached from Hancock's front and ordered in to check the hostile advance. The disputed ground had come to be an intermediate position of woods and wheat-field between Sickles' lost
