George Washington Custis Lee's Counter Attack

Since Union General Frank Wheaton's 1st Division made it across Little Sailor's Creek first, they would lead the assault upon Confederate General Richard S. Ewell's entrenched position. As Wheaton's men approached the Southerners, without orders Ewell's men rose and fired a volley into the Federal battle line, causing a portion of Colonel Oliver Edwards' brigade (the 2d Rhode Island and 49th Pennsylvania) to break and fall back to the creek. Caught up in the spirit of the moment, a group of Custis Lee's men, led by Colonel Stapleton Crutchfield, mass an unordered counterattack. These included the 18th Georgia Battalion Heavy Artillery (the Savannah Guards), the Chaffin's Bluff Battalion- and the 10th and 19th Virginia Battalion Heavy Artillery (acting as infantry). As the Confederates chased the Federals down to and across the creek, deadly hand-to-hand fighting took place, during which Crutchfield was killed by a bullet through the head. Major Robert Stiles, commanding the Chaffin's Bluff Battalion, then took over the group. Across the creek, guns from the Union Artillery Brigade under Major Andrew Cowand were sent forward from their location near the Hillsman house to resolve the dilemma of Wheaton's men. Their close range canister fire sin caused the Confederates to retreat back to their initial lines. The router taken by the Crutchfield/ Stiles counter attack had them breaking through an upcoming between the 37th Massachusetts and 121st New York. The former unit was put in a untenable position as it became separated from the other Commands which had fallen back towards the creek. "Alone and utterly unsupported," 200 members of the 37th noticed a "heavy column of the enemy passing the left flank of the regiment." Changing their front to have them, the men let loose with their seven shout Spencer Repeating Rifles and "drove the force out of sight."