Late in the morning during Sheridan's major assault at 11:40 am, Union commander Gen. Philip H. Sheridan sent Gen. William H. Emory's 19th Corps to attack across a rolling farm landscape broken by woods. Emory deployed Gen. Cuvier Grover's 8,000-man division in a double line of battle against the 2,600 Confederates of Gen. John B. Gordon's division, a formation that reduced much of Grover's 3:1 manpower advantage. After forming near the present-day high school, Grover's division advanced through the First Woods, paused at the western edge to straighten its lines, and then moved into the open Middle Field as Gordon's Confederates came forward through the Second Woods and Confederate horse artillery shelled the Union flank from Huntsberry Farm. Hoping for a measured advance, Grover instead saw his men rush across the field to escape the cannon fire; though their formation broke apart, they struck Gordon's left flank hard and threw it into confusion. The disorder of the attack, however, helped set up disaster for the Federals when Confederate Gen. Robert E. Rodes launched a counterattack shortly afterward. Col. Willoughby Babcock, who urged the 75th New York forward, was mortally wounded by Confederate artillery fire.
