Wilder’s men received orders to hustle to the West Viniard field and help the overwhelmed Federal line. They arrived to find the 3rd Arkansas and the 1st Texas of Brig. Gen. Jerome Robertson’s Texas Brigade, a portion of Longstreet’s corps, dangerously close to the 2nd Minnesota Battery. The 72nd Indiana and 123rd Illinois ran in to shatter the Texans and Arkansans.

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Wilder then deployed his regiments along the western side of the West Viniard field with Lilly’s battery on the left flank supported by the 98th Illinois. Running to the south, the 17th Indiana was next in line, followed by the 123rd and 72nd. As the Confederate attack developed, the 98th Illinois and 17th Indiana, along with two of Lilly’s cannons, wheeled to the left to fire at the 39th North Carolina and 25th Arkansas of Brig. Gen. Evander McNair’s brigade. The sputtering Spencers and roaring cannons compelled the Confederates to withdraw. Within a short time, the momentum of a major Confederate advance across the La Fayette Road had been halted and pushed back by the Lightning Brigade.

But at 3:30 p.m., after a short lull, the Texas Brigade came on again. After another full hour of fighting, Robertson’s men fell back across the La Fayette Road. ‘Our…seven-shooters were too much for them. The ground was gray with the dead and wounded,’ remembered one of Wilder’s men. Colonel George P. Buell’s brigade of the XXI Corps pursued them into the East Viniard field.

The fight was not yet gone out of Robertson’s men, however. Around 5:30 p.m., Robertson’s brigade aligned with Brig. Gen. Henry Benning’s Georgia brigade and came storming back across the La Fayette Road, herding Buell’s men before them and heading once more toward Wilder’s men at the edge of the West Viniard field.

Ammunition was dumped on the ground within easy reach of the Lightning Brigade soldiers. As the Rebels came on, Ambrose Remley of the 72nd claimed, ‘[We were] ordered to wait until we could see the whites of their eyes…’ Once that happened, Sergeant Ben Magee of the same regiment recalled he was not alone in ‘working’ his’spencer rifle for all it was worth.’

Outnumbered nearly 2-to-1, Wilder’s men kept the Southern attack in check, and the Rebels slipped into the West Viniard field ditch for cover. Robertson and Benning looked for a battery to help blast the Midwesterners, but none was found. Meanwhile, Lilly’s battery rolled forward and enfiladed the Rebel-filled ditch with canister, causing it, said one gunner, to become ‘full of killed and wounded.’ The Confederate attack fell apart, and those who got away retreated back across the La Fayette Road. Many were captured. One Rebel prisoner queried his captors, ‘What kind of guns have you got over here?…You jus’ kept on shootin and shootin.”

While the battle raged in the West Viniard field, the 92nd Illinois was fighting for all it was worth a short distance to the north in the Brotherton field. There, the regiment had done all in its power to stop the flight of a rattled Union brigade and slow down an onslaught of Tennessee and Texas troops. They had been only partially successful, and when they went to withdraw, the Illinoisans discovered that retreating infantrymen had made off with many of their horses.

Later that night, the 92nd rejoined their brigade on its left flank. For the second day in a row, Wilder’s men had helped save the Army of the Cumberland from total disaster. On the third day of fighting, however, events out of their hands would lead to a full retreat of the entire army.

On that day, September 20, an aide for Rosecrans was surveying the field and failed to see part of Brig. Gen. John M. Brannan’s division in the center of the Union line. He reported the apparent hole to Rosecrans, who called on Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Wood’s nearby division to fill the gap.

Wood’s departure, ironically, did create a major hole in the middle of the Union line where Longstreet had planned a full attack with a fresh division. The result was a major Confederate breakthrough. Longstreet began wrapping up the Union line in quick fashion, with fleeing Union troops streaming past Rosecrans’ headquarters at the Widow Glenn farm.

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