Lee and Longstreet quickly cobbled together an assault force made up of four brigades. From the Third Corps came Mahone’s and Colonel John M. Stone’s brigades. Brigadier Generals William T. Wofford’s and G.T. Anderson’s First Corps brigades rounded out the force. Mahone was the senior brigadier and had overall command of the grouping. Sorrel guided the strike force to a point almost directly below Hancock’s left flank. The jump-off line was reached about noon, and Sorrel and Mahone positioned the soldiers.

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Wofford held down the left, with Stone’s Brigade behind him acting as a general reserve. Mahone placed his men in the center, with G.T. Anderson guarding the right. Lt. Col. Everard Feild’s sharpshooter battalion was out in front as skirmishers. Mahone then turned over immediate control of his brigade to the commander of the 12th Virginia, Colonel Weisiger. From left to right, and facing to the northwest, the 6th, 16th, 61st, 41st and 12th prepared for the attack. Little Billy was about to drive his ad hoc division, including his brigade, right at the Federal host.

By 10 a.m. a lull had settled over the southern portion of the battlefield. Hancock’s men were bringing their coffee to a boil when Mahone gave the order to charge, and the gray hurricane burst through thickets and up ravines at the Union left ‘like an army of ghosts rising out of the earth,’ said one bluecoat. The Federal flank began to give way, and Longstreet stepped up the pressure by initiating a frontal attack against Hancock’s position.

Mahone drove his men, paying particular attention to his brigade. When the 6th Virginia slowed its pace, he rode up and expressed his displeasure at finding the’splendidly drilled regiment…in this condition….’ The troops got moving again. Mahone’s Brigade hurtled to the Orange Plank Road, where the regiments intermingled and the onslaught bogged down. To correct the disorder, Mahone halted his units. The 12th Virginia, however, failed to hear the order and continued forward for another 50 yards beyond the road, then veered to the right to avoid some brushfires. The regiment’s temporary commander, Lt. Col. Joseph P. Minetree, suddenly realized his isolated position, about-faced the 12th and started moving it back.

To their misfortune, General Longstreet and a group of officers then rode down the Orange Plank Road between the stationary 41st Virginia and the approaching 12th. In the thick smoke caused by small-arms discharges and burning timber, the men of the 41st and 61st thought that the 12th and Longstreet’s mounted group were enemy infantry led by horsemen, and let loose a volley.

Longstreet was seriously wounded, and Brig. Gen. Micah Jenkins, a promising young commander accompanying Longstreet, fell with a mortal head wound. Several other staff officers and members of the 12th Virginia were killed or injured. Later in the day, soldiers in the 6th Virginia fatally shot Union Brig. Gen. James S. Wadsworth as he rallied his wavering troops. The general’s horse bolted into Southern lines, and a Mini ball hit Wadsworth in the back of the head. He died a few hours later.

Longstreet’s wounding disrupted Rebel attacks on Hancock’s line, and by 9 p.m. the fighting at the south end of the battlefield petered out. Mahone’s Brigade had done its work and spent the remainder of May 6 behind breastworks at the intersection of the Orange Plank and Brock roads facing Hancock’s men sheltering behind their own earthworks. Mahone was justly proud of his men and reported their attack ‘complete as it was brilliant.’ He also noted the ‘long lines of [Union] dead and wounded which lay in the wake of our swoop.’

Due to Longstreet’s wounding, Anderson took control of the First Corps and Mahone assumed command of Anderson’s Division. Weisiger maintained control of the Old Dominion Brigade and was given the temporary rank of brigadier general.

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