Converging on this point in the field was Confederate Brigadier General William Barksdale's brigade, with about 1,600 troops advancing from the point where they had swept through the Peach Orchard from Emmitsburg Road, and the left-wing of Brigadier General Joseph B. Kershaw's Brigade, advancing on the farm in a line stretching from the eastern portion of the Peach Orchard to the western edge of Houck's Ridge. Both converging Confederate battlelines were driving the routed Union units before them in a seemingly unstoppable advance.

Fleeing in this direction before the Confederate "Crimson Tide" were the remains of Union Major General David B. Birney's First Division of Sickles' Third Corps. The federal officers tried vainly to rally their retreating, broken units, while some Union artillery units attempting to pull-out did not even dare try to limber up, but instead, fired their cannons and allowed them to roll backwards, and tried to exit the field in this manner.

Third Army Corps Major General Daniel E. Sickles himself rode forth to the Trostle Farm to try and help rally his shattered line, only to become a victim of his own device. Sickles' Bulge would cost the general his leg, when he was struck and knocked off his horse by a Confederate cannonball. The leg had to be removed from below the knee.

The Union center needed time, and it needed to buy it now...at whatever price. Captain John Bigelow and his 9th Massachusetts Light Artillery Battery would be chosen as the "sacrificial lamb," and his battery was ordered to unlimber on the Trostle Farm around the barn and house and, basically, hold at all costs. The Federal command hoped to buy enough time to form a new rag-tag line along Plum Run at the rear of the Trostle tract at the head of the Valley of Death. It would be the real last chance to make a stand, and Bigelow was charged with delaying the Confederate sweep long enough for the Union officers to piece something together to try and save the center of Cemetery Ridge.

Bigelow's 9th Massachusetts Light Artillery Battery deployed as Barksdale's troops swept over the rise in their right front and as Kershaw's wing encroached from the middle to left front. Amazingly, the battery bought precious time against all odds, trading shot, shell and cannister with thousands of bullets from the pressing Confederate infantry. To make matters a little hotter, Confederate artillery deployed in the Peach Orchard and began lobbing rounds into and around the Union artillery position.

It was not long before the precarious position became untenable and the officer, men and horses of the 9th Massachusetts Light Artillery Battery began to drop right and left. Bigelow's artillery had done all they could. It was time to make a run for the Plum Run Line (a line being hastily formed to guard the Union center), but withdrawing the guns would not prove to be an easy task.

Confederate shot holes in Trostle barn.

"Just before they (the Confederates) closed in, the left section (of artillery)...was ordered to the rear. One piece went through the gateway of the stone wall, was upset, righted amid a shower of bullets and...was dragged to the rear, the other piece was driven directly over the stone wall... I then saw the Confederates swarming in on our right flank, some standing on the limber chests and firing at the gunners who were still serving their pieces; the horses were all down; overhead the air was alive with missiles..." - Captain John Bigelow

As the remnants of Bigelow's battery abandoned Trostle's and headed on to Plum Run, the Trostle Farm was secured by the Confederate troops. Now everything depended on what the Federals had been able to piece together along the Plum Run in the time Bigelow had bought for them.