When Ransom perceived Mouton's movement, he threw forward his right to meet it with such spirit that Mouton's first line was driven back in confusion on his second; then rallying and returning to the charge, Mouton's men halted, lay down, and began firing at about two hundred yards' range. The two batteries of Landram's division, Cone's Chicago Mercantile, and Klauss's 1st Indiana, now came on the field, and were posted by Ransom on the ridge near the centre, to oppose the enemy's advance on the left, before which Dudley's men were already falling back. Bee and Walker had in fact turned the whole left flank, and were rapidly moving on, breaking in the line as they advanced. This soon left Nims's guns without support, and at the same time Klauss and Cone came under a fire so severe from Walker's men, that Ransom determined to withdraw to the cover of the wood in his rear at the edge of the clearing. Unfortunately, Captain Dickey, his assistant adjutant-general, fell mortally wounded in the act of communicating these orders, and thus some of the regiments farther toward the right, being without orders, and fighting stubbornly against great odds, stood their ground until they were completely surrounded and taken prisoners. While aiding Landram to rally and reform the remnants of his division in the skirt of timber, Ransom was severely wounded in the knee, and had to be carried off the field. Vance and Emerson were wounded and taken prisoners, each at the head of his brigade.
Meanwhile, shortly after three o'clock, at his quarters, near Ransom's camp of the forenoon, Franklin received his first suggestion of an impending battle, in Banks's order to bring all the infantry to the front. First sending back word to Emory, Franklin set out at once and rode forward rapidly, followed by Cameron's division. When, some time after four o'clock, he entered the clearing and galloped to the hill where the guns of Nims still stood grimly defiant and Ransom's men were still desperately struggling to hold their first ground, the situation was already hopeless. Hardly had he arrived on the ground, than, by a single volley from Walker's advancing lines, Franklin's horse was killed, and he himself and Captains Chapman and Pigman of his staff were wounded.