After Buford’s troopers hung on for two more full hours of fighting, they were reaching the limit of their endurance. Reynolds knew this and that if he did not hurry he would lose McPherson’s Ridge. He turned in the saddle and called back over his shoulder to the infantry trudging up behind him: “Forward, forward, men! Drive those fellows out of that! Forward! For God’s sake, forward!” Those were his last words. He suddenly toppled from his horse and lay quite still, face-down on the soil of his native Pennsylvania. No one knew what hit him–including Reynolds himself, most likely–until an aide saw the neat half-inch hole behind his right ear, where the rifle bullet had struck. When they turned him over he gasped once. then smiled, but that was all. He was dead at the age of forty-two, brought down by a reb marksman in the orchard just ahead. “His death affected us much,” a young lieutenant later wrote, “for he was one of the soldier generals of the army.”

Archer’s brigade pressed on in the main to overrun the dismounted troopers. But, they were thrown into disorder by a fence they had to climb before they forded a stream and could start up the slope of McPherson’s Ridge. They managed to regain order and as they started up the Ridge they suddenly ran into flame-stabbed smoke and the crash of heavy volleys. This was musketry, not sporadic Spencer carbine fire and then they saw why. Not only were these new opponents infantry, but their black hats told the startled and stalled attackers that this was our Iron Brigade. The first brigade of the first division of the first corps of the first Army of the Republic. If Thomas Jackson’s Stonewall Brigade was a fearsome sight to make our men tremble, the same or moreso could be said of our Iron Brigade, these hard-bitten Westerners with the formidable reputation for hard fighting and their fierce pride.

Staggered by this ambush, the surviving butternuts made a dash back from the attack. This time that fence would prove to be fatal. Piling high on the fence in disorder, the Alabamians were suddenly attacked from their flank by a Michigan regiment. They were cut to ribbons and those who escaped considered themselves lucky.

75 rebs were captured including Archer, who was roughed up by a hefty private named Patrick Maloney. Archer never got over the mauling the big Irishman gave him. Heh.

Buford who was watching his dismounted troopers barely hang on, from the cupola of a Lutheran seminary, knew if Federal infantry didn’t come up soon, he would have to pull out to avoid being caught in pincer attack. At about 8:30, however, as Buford started down the ladder, perhaps to give the order to retire, he heard a calm voice asking from below: “What’s the matter, John?” It was Reynolds, considered by many to be the best general in the army. Buford shook his head. “The devil’s to pay,” he said. Reynold’s asked if that meant he could not hold on till I Corps got there, Buford reckoned he could and that was all that Reynolds needed to know.

Thank God that Stuart is off running around the Army of the Potomac again, polishing his legend instead of screening and recon. Good cavalry isn’t worth a damn if it’s not around.

Buford is the man. I just hope all this stress doesn’t take it’s toll on him down the road. I also heard that Abner Doubleday did yeoman’s work holding his flank together. I’d hope that he gets rewarded, but that’s probably too much competence to hope for from our leadership.

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Buford is the hero of the battle I think - he remembered too many battles like Fredericksburg where the Union got slaughtered trying to slog uphill. Time to make the rebels do that, for once.