Around 6:00 pm, the Union army began a forward movement from the high ground around the Hillsman farmhouse in two lines of battle and soon reached Little Sailor’s Creek, which was then flooded to a depth of two to four feet. As they descended the hill, prepared to cross a marsh, and pushed through a hedge so high and dense that it hid what lay beyond, soldiers found a breach near the colors and moved toward a stream of muddy water about a dozen feet wide. One officer jumped through the hedge expecting knee-deep water, but sank above his sword belt into the mud, freed himself only by gripping the far bank and working his feet loose, and then climbed out. The troops, carrying their weapons and ammunition boxes over their shoulders, crossed the flooded stream, but many fell on the plains and in the water, and those who reached the west bank were in more or less disorder, as General J. Warren Keifer recalled.
