As the Patriot line disintegrated, the right flank of the Maryland Continentals pushed back the British Legion, North Carolina Loyalists, and Volunteers of Ireland three times, capturing an artillery piece and some soldiers, while Patriot troops on the west side of the road fought hard against Cornwallis's men. Major General Johann de Kalb, a seasoned European officer who had offered his services to the Patriots during the war, led a vigorous charge with a regiment of Continental infantry through the left division of the British, and for more than 30 minutes a bloody struggle continued on the western side of the battlefield. Wounded and bleeding, de Kalb fell from his saddle, kept fighting on foot, and then collapsed from multiple wounds. When Cornwallis realized no Patriot cavalry remained to oppose him, he advanced with his dragoons against the Maryland brigades as his infantry charged with fixed bayonets. The Patriot units, still trying to hold steady, were finally broken, and the British captured the Patriot artillery and many Patriot soldiers, though some Continentals escaped through the swamp on the right of the American position where the British could not follow. As Gates's army retreated north, de Kalb was taken prisoner to the British base at Camden, where he was treated by Patriot doctor Isaac Alexander of the North Carolina militia, dictated letters to his military aide Chevalier du Buysson, and died three days later, far from his home.