Battle's turning point

All at once, a huge bolt of lightning lit up the sky and struck a large tree. The loud clap of thunder and falling tree limbs startled troops on both sides. As the storm intensified, Sgt. William Clark, Co. H, saw rebels falling back across the unobstructed bridge. He ordered rapid fire aimed at rebels lifting a cannon barrel into a wagon. In the blowing rain, Clark's men had a hard time keeping their fuses and powder dry. With no way to load and fire, Clark waved Co. H out of the timber and advanced toward Elk Creek.

Sgts. James Maddox, Co. G and Douglas Grimes, Co. F, led their men out of the timber to protect Clark's flanks. The regiment reorganized its battle line when more men left the timber. Moving forward, the black troops advanced on the bridge from three sides. The Texans, now facing "a foe doubly superior"19, fell back to the steep banks of Big Elk Creek.

Before black troops could close off fords above and below the bridge, some Texans "had reached their horses"20 and escaped along the creek. A few men near the bridge also crossed to safety. However, parts of three regiments were effectively "cut off from the main body."21 At this time, heavy rain became a steady downpour mixed with pea-size hailstones.

1:00 P.M.

Just 300 yards north of the bridge in the open prairie, union commanders stood silent and fixed in place when heavy rain and hail stopped all movements and conversations. While many soldiers on both sides attempted to shield themselves from the cloudburst, the First Kansas began its final assault to capture the bridge.

Charging repeatedly with fixed bayonets, black troops forced the Texans back to the creek's edge. Rain mixed with blood made the ground slippery and men started to slip off the steep banks. The trapped rebels, some on horseback, fell 30 feet through brush and tree stumps to the creek bottom. They landed on a bed of hard creek rocks, one on top of the other in fast rising creek water.

Still unable to load and fire in the heavy rain, black troops used bayonets and muscle to penetrate deeper and deeper into the Texans' ranks. Sgt. Isaac Jackson, Co. E, ordered Cpl. Charles Smith to take three men and disable the wagon loaded with the cannon.

Smith, along with Pvts. George Carey, Daniel Sanders, and Edward Miller, made their way to the wagon and unhooked the horses. They turned the wagon's wheels toward the creek and commenced to push.

Immediately, more black troops came to help budge the wagon out of ankle deep mud. When the wagon began to move, rebel defenders tried to impede its progress to the creek; some "even clubbing their muskets"22 in a futile attempt to stop the black troops. As the wagon approached the banks, panicky drivers jumped off to safety. However, the wagon slammed into men unable to get out of the way and knocked them into the creek.

After the wagon crashed down into Elk Creek, black troops and Texans merged into a mass of wet muddy combatants. Bayonets and swords became almost useless in close hand-to-hand fighting as fierce wrestling and brutal fistfights broke out.

Under a steady downpour, opposing troops struggled with each other as they stumbled over bodies lying in the mud. Within minutes, the black troops' physical size began to overpower the smaller cavalrymen. Using muskets with fixed bayonets, they pressed the rebels back and forced them off the banks. Inside the regiment's pinchers on both sides of the bridge, black troops wrestled, shoved, and tossed dismounted cavalrymen into the creek.

As the regiment finished mopping up the north bank, Sgt. Abraham Riley Co. E, led his men unopposed across the bridge to the south bank of Big Elk Creek.