For a brief period the rebels held possession of the inside of our breastworks along the entire front of Strickland's brigade on the west side, and of Reilly's brigade down to the cotton-gin on the east side of the pike; and the ground in their possession was the key to Cox's entire position. This break in our line was identical in extent with the front covered by the great body of Wagner's men in falling back, and it was occasioned by the panic and confusion created by Wagner's men in crossing the breastworks. Cox's men, along this part of our line, seem to have lost their nerve at the sight of the rebel army coming and on account of their own helpless condition. They could not fire a single shot while Wagner's men were between themselves and the rebels. The first rebels crossed the breastworks side by side with the last of Wagner's men. At some point a break started and then it spread rapidly until it reached the men who were too busily occupied in firing on the rebels to become affected by the panic. Opdycke's brigade was directly in the rear of where this break occurred. At the sound of the firing in front, Opdycke had deployed his brigade astride the pike, ready for instant action, and as soon as he saw that a stampede was coming from the breastworks, without waiting for any order, he instantly led his brigade forward. His brigade restored the break in our line, charging straight through the rout, after a desperate hand-to-hand encounter in which Opdycke himself, first firing all the shots in his revolver and then breaking it over the head of a rebel, snatched up a musket and fought with that for a club. It is true that hundreds of brave men from the four broken brigades of Conrad, Lane, Reilly, and Strickland, who were falling back, when they met Opdycke's advancing line, saw that the position would not be given up without a desperate struggle and faced about and fought as gallantly as any of Opdycke's men in recovering and afterwards in holding our line; but if Opdycke's brigade had not been where it was, the day undoubtedly would have closed with the utter rout and ruin of our four divisions of infantry south of the river. When General Cox met Opdycke on the field immediately after the break was restored, he took him by the hand and fervently exclaimed, "Opdycke, that charge saved the day."