While the Federals formed to dispose of Evans’ pesky command, about 800 yards to Evans’ rear, on the northern slope of Henry Hill, a new player entered the fray as Confederate Brig. Gen. Barnard Bee drew his ad hoc brigade into position. He formed his troops so that they had a full view of the contest on the opposite height.

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From his higher position atop Henry Hill, Bee could see that Evans was holding out against incredible odds. He sent a courier down to the hard-pressed South Carolinian to urge him to fall back to Henry Hill, a position that was stronger than the one he currently occupied. But Evans instead dared Bee to come down and support him. Faced with Evans’ intransigence, Bee reluctantly led his men forward. “Here is the battlefield,” he said, “and we are in for it!”

Under heavy enemy artillery fire, Bee marched his command forward across the pike, up and over Buck Hill, and onto the slope of Matthews Hill, where he sent his lead regiment, the 4th Alabama, up through the pine thicket and into the same swale that Wheat had held a few minutes before. The 2nd Mississippi, next in line, was sent to the left of the 4th Alabama, linking up Sloan’s depleted 4th South Carolina. Bee’s last two regiments, the 7th and 8th Georgia, under Colonel Francis Bartow, moved to extend the Confederate right toward the Matthews house. Bee had arrived none too soon, for the advance elements of Heintzelman’s Federal division had began to arrive to support Burnside’s stymied line.

Wheat, out on his own and under steady fire from Union infantry and artillery, believed that he was “in the face of a very large force; some ten or twelve thousand in number.” Despite the preponderance of enemy fire, he ordered his men to advance from the shelter of the woods and into the field of cut hay to connect with the rest of Bee’s command. Only a handful of Tigers obliged, however, and even they moved reluctantly out into the field, where they concealed themselves behind some haystacks as best they could. In the process of ousting the rest of his men from the woods, Wheat was hit by a Minié bullet that whizzed down from the top of Matthews Hill. The bullet clipped his left arm, drilled into his left side and perforated one lung before passing out the other side.

Wheat fell to the ground, and a group of his men, including Captain Buhoup, quickly surrounded him and rolled him onto a blanket. Then they began to lug their burly commander back to the wood line. The enemy fire was so galling that Wheat shouted, “Lay me down, boys, you must save yourselves!” His pleas were ignored.

As Wheat was dragged into the relative safety of the woods, the battalion’s color-bearer threw his bullet-ridden flag over him to help stop the bleeding. A few minutes later, a mounted officer rode up to Wheat to rush him to the nearest field hospital.

Wheat’s wounding proved momentous. Once he was evacuated, the battalion, with no field officer to rally it, broke up and melted away, the men heading for the rear, some following Wheat himself. Their withdrawal eventually unhinged the rest of Bee’s line, which was already pressed beyond the breaking point.

By noon, Hunter’s and Heintzelman’s divisions had wrested control of Matthews Hill from the Confederates. Once they reached the pike, they were joined by the men of General Tyler’s division, who had finally pushed through Sloan’s four remaining companies at the Stone Bridge. General McDowell also arrived at the field and, happy with how the battle had evolved thus far, decided to press the attack.

As McDowell concentrated to deliver the coup de grâce, the bulk of Bee’s shattered command retreated south and east, across the pike, up the northern slope of Henry Hill, and into a patch of woods. There they were joined by Colonel Wade Hampton’s battalion of South Carolinians, just arrived from the Confederate right. Hampton agreed to continue his march down to the pike in order to cover Bee’s retreat. After a brief fight, Hampton’s men, fighting alone, were also overwhelmed by McDowell’s advancing forces and forced to fall back to Henry Hill.

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