Andrews now took command of the division, in virtue of the written orders of the commanding general, and prepared to obey whatever fresh instructions he might receive. None came; there was, indeed, nothing to be done but to withdraw and to restore order.
As soon as Banks heard the rattle of the musketry on the left, and saw from the smoke of the Confederate guns that Sherman was engaged, he ordered Augur forward. Augur, as has been said, had been ready and waiting all day. His arrangements were to make the attack with Chapin's brigade, deployed across the Plains Store road, and to support it with Dudley's, held in reserve under cover of one of the high and thick hedges of the Osage orange that crossed and divided the fields on the right of the road. Chapin's front was covered by the skirmishers of the 21st Maine; immediately in their rear were to march the storming column of two hundred volunteers, under Lieutenant-Colonel O'Brien, of the 48th Massachusetts. The stormers rested and waited for the word in the point of the wood on the left of the Plains Store road, nearly opposite the position of battery 13. Half their number carried cotton bags and fascines to fill the ditch. On the right of the road the 116th New York was deployed; on its left the 49th Massachusetts, closely supported by the 48th Massachusetts, the 2d Louisiana, of Dudley's brigade, and the reserve of the 21st Maine.
O'Brien shook hands with the officer who brought him the last order, and, turning to his men, who were lying or sitting near by, some on their cotton bags, others on the ground, said in the coolest and most business-like manner: "Pick up your bundles, and come on!" The movement of the stormers was the signal for the whole line. A truly magnificent sight was the advance of these battalions, with their colors flying and borne sturdily toward the front; yet not for long. Hardly had the movement begun when the whole force --officers, men, colors, stormers, and all,--found themselves inextricably entangled in the dense abatis under a fierce and continuous discharge of musketry and a withering cross-fire of artillery. Besides the field-pieces bearing directly down the road, two 24-pounders poured upon their flank a storm of missiles of all sorts, with fragments of railway bars and broken chains for grape, and rusty nails and the rakings of the scrap-heap for canister. No part of the column ever passed beyond the abatis, nor was it even possible to extricate the troops in any order without greatly adding to the list of casualties, already of a fearful length. Banks was all for putting Dudley over the open ground directly in his front, but, before any thing could be done, came the bad news from the left, and at last it was clear to the most persistent that the day was miserably lost. When, after nightfall, the division commanders reported at headquarters, among the wounded under the great trees, it was known that the result was even worse than the first accounts.