At least six regiments formed the rebel right, and pressed first on the Tenth Indiana; but this brave regiment had learned the fighting metal of the enemy at Rich Mountain, in Western Virginia, and could not be made to yield an inch even to such fearful odds. Fortunately protected somewhat by the trees from the hostile fire, they stood steadily, pouring volley after volley into the rebels; responding to their yells with defiant cheers; fighting four times their number for nearly an hour and a half, and never yielding an inch, in spite of a constant and fearful hail of lead, until their ammunition became exhausted; when they were ordered to give way to the Second Minnesota. This they did with composed and unbroken ranks, bringing off their dead and wounded, whose number was a mournful proof of the fearful trial they had undergone. Some thirty minutes after the Tenth Indiana had opened the contest, the Fourth Kentucky engaged the rebels on the left of the former, and displayed coolness and firmness most remarkable, in view of the fact that it had never before been under fire. It also had to contend against superior numbers, but maintained its formation, and did not allow the rebels to gain a foot of ground. The men cheered each other, and in their ardor came within short range of the enemy, to whose irregular fire they replied with great vigor and effect. Colonel Fry inspired all under him by his courageous conduct. Up and down the line of his command he moved, urging his Kentuckians on under a shower of bullets. Meantime, the Second Minnesota fulfilled the trust left to it by the Tenth Indiana. The stalwart farmers and lumbermen that composed it performed the duty allotted to them deliberately and with perfect success. They loaded and fired with ease and calmness, and seemed to think no more of the work they were doing than of handling a plow or plying an axe. The widely-renowned Ninth Ohio did not join in the bloody strife in its earliest stages. At about half-past eight, however, its impatience for the fray was at last gratified, and it appeared upon the stage in solid line of battle, moving measuredly, and with the confident and determined air of veterans, through a broad, open field on the right of the road, to within two hundred yards, and began a fire upon some rebel regiments that were firing from behind a fence, with regularity and precision. It held the right alone while the action continued. The rebels succeeded in bringing a battery of their artillery in position about nine o’clock, and opened upon the Federal troops shortly afterward with solid and hollow shot. Their balls and shells all went high over the Union soldiers, not one of whom owed his death or wound to the rebel artillery.