It was evident that the attack was serious and Col.
Field was at once despatched to the front with two hundred men.[29] He came only just in time.

At the first fire both of the scouts in front of the white line had been killed.

The attack fell first, and with especial fury, on the division of Charles Lewis, who himself was mortally wounded at the very outset; he had not taken a tree,[30] but was in an open piece of ground, cheering on his men, when he was shot.
He stayed with them until the line was formed, and then walked back to camp unassisted, giving his gun to a man who was near him.

His men, who were drawn up on the high ground skirting Crooked Run,[31] began to waver, but were rallied by Fleming, whose division had been attacked almost simultaneously, until he too was struck down by a bullet.

The line then gave way, except that some of Fleming's men still held their own on the left in a patch of rugged ground near the Ohio.