About four Getty started, and the movement being taken up in succession toward the right, in a few minutes the whole line was advancing steadily. From that moment to the end the men hardly stopped an instant for anything. The resistance of the Confederates, though at first steady, and here and there even spirited, was of short duration. For a few moments, indeed, the attack seemed to hang on the extreme right as McMillan, rushing on even more rapidly than the order of the combat demanded, found himself suddenly enveloped by the right wheel of the brigade of Evans, forming the extreme left of the division of Gordon and of the Confederate army. But while McMillan was thus attacked and his leading troops were called to meet the danger, this, as suddenly as it had come, was swept away by the swift onset of Davis directly upon the front and flank of Evans. To do this Davis had not only to act instantly, but also to change front under a double fire; yet he and his brigade were equal to the emergency, and McMillan joining in, together they not only threw off the attack of Evans, but bursting through the re-entrant angle of Gordon's line, quickly swept Evans off the field. Knowing this to be the critical point of his line, because the wheeling flank, Sheridan was there. "Stay where you are," was his order, "till you see my boy Custer over there." Then upon the high ground appeared Custer at the head of his bold troopers, making ready to swoop down upon the broken wing of Gordon. Almost at the same instant, the whole right of the line rushed to the charge, and while Custer rode down Gordon's left flank, Dwight, with McMillan and Davis, began rolling up the whole Confederate line. Meanwhile, on the left centre the Union attack likewise hung for a moment, where Molineux, on the southerly slope of a wooded hollow, saw himself confronted by Kershaw on the opposite crest, only to be reached by climbing the steep bare side of the "dirt hill." But the keen eye of Molineux easily saw through the difficulties of the ground, and when he was ready his men and Birge's, rising up and together charging boldly out of the hollow, up the hill, across the open ground, and over the stone wall, in the face of a fierce fire, settled the overthrow of Kershaw and sent a panic running down the line of Ramseur. Wright attacking with equal vigor, soon the disorder spread through every part of Early's force, and in rout and ruin the exultant victors of the morning were flying up the valley.