General Rodes ordered the regiments reformed and moved further to the left. Information had been received that night that General Grant was retiring in the direction of Fredericksburg and Germanna Ford. The artillery, which had been posted on the hill in the angle, was withdrawn, leaving Major General Johnson of Ewell's Corps, whose division occupied that part of the line, without any artillery support. He communicated this fact to the Corps commander at midnight, with the additional intelligence that the enemy was massing a heavy force in his immediate front for the purpose, as he believed, of assaulting him next morning. The guns were sent back and were just moving into the angle at 4 o'clock in the morning, when the force which Johnson reported to be massing in his front, made a vigorous assault upon his position and carried it. The assaulting force which had been assembled in the ravine at the foot of the hill, was very strong, and advanced in column of regiments. It had rained earlier in the evening and considerable fog prevailed, under cover of which the attack was made. One or two guns were successfully put back into position and fired, but the horses attached to the other pieces were shot down before they could be unlimbered and most of the cannoneers were captured. Rodes’ Division at that time was the left division of the army and as such, they did not initially participate in the fighting, but were held in reserve south of the McCoull House. The great struggled was continuing on a much wider front of the same angle the men of the 5th Alabama Infantry had helped recaptured two days before. By daybreak on May 12, 1864, the whole line in front was engaged and the Confederates were succumbing to the advance of the Union troops.

Jones' Virginia Brigade, whose commander was killed at the Wilderness while trying to rally his men, was the first to break. The old Stonewall and other brigades belonging to the division that were involved, soon followed its’ example. However, it should not be imagined that the enemy gained the hill without opposition, sudden and vigorous as his assault was. He was received with volley after volley, and the ground was covered with his slain; but he had massed such a heavy force upon a single exposed point, some distance in advance of the general line and incapable of being instantaneously supported, that it was found impossible to repulse him. The eighteen or twenty guns which had been brought back up were left on the field, but neither side was able to secure them on account of the fire of the other, particularly the Sharpshooters. The Confederates suffered severely as they retreated across the intervening space to their second line, or rather to the line which subtends the angle, and which may be considered the base of the triangle covering the hill. But the broken division did not stop there; they continued their retreat to the rear. The enemy had now gained possession of a wood within the works and advanced nearly a quarter of a mile from the works to the area around the McCoull house. The enemy swarmed over the hill and rushed against the lines to the right and left, but Rodes, Gordon and Wilcox were there to meet them. Initially, it was the gallant General Gordon, commanding Early's division, from his reserve position that swept to the rescue. Gordon threw in three regiments of his Georgia brigade near the McCoull house at a charge, striking the enemy’s front and left and driving those they met out of the works and over them. The Federals being thus checked, he then formed the other three regiments of his brigade and Pegram's Virginia brigade and put them in on the right of the other three regiments, and pushed back the enemy in splendid style, regaining Steuart's and parts of Jones' line, and the artillery. They continued to hold this position the rest of the day, against repeated assaults, although their left was never supported by other troops. A little after Gordon had gone in, Ramseur's North Carolina brigade of Rodes' division made a magnificent charge upon the enemy's right as they passed through the works, driving them out with slaughter and retaking the line of the Louisiana and part of the Stonewall brigade, and here they stood all day. Although these troops were doing splendidly, there was still a gap of some length between Ramseur's right and Pegram's left, where the enemy held the Confederate works, and through which they continued to press. To close this gap and regain the whole line and the artillery, there was desperate fighting. Battle's Alabama brigade of Rodes' division was thrown in on Ramseur's right, his centre passing the McCoull house, and drove the enemy back some distance into the woods, gaining a foothold in the wood, which they resolutely held.

Battle’s and Ramseur’s men had now started the bloody business of recapturing the occupied works on the western leg of the salient. The battle was now fully joined, and for nine hours it roared and hissed and dashed over the bloody angle and along the bristling entrenchments. The artillery fire was continuous averaging thirty shot to the minute, or 1800 to the hour, for six hours. The rattle of musketry was not less furious and incessant. But it was against Ewell, who held the right of the original line that Grant expended his greatest efforts and made his most desperate assaults. Having gained a foothold in the angle or centre of Ewell's position, he brought up line after line and hurled them with tremendous violence at one time against Rodes, at another against Gordon, and then against both. Wilcox was brought up and placed on Gordon's right and Wofford and Humphreys of Kershaw's Division and Jenkins' Brigade of Field's, Anderson's Corps, were sent to the assistance of Rodes. Additional batteries were sent in the same direction. Heth went to the right and all of Anderson's old division but Wright followed him. And so the whirling, remorseless maelstrom drew everything into its angry vortex.

General Rodes, a handsome figure grandly riding a black, froth-flecked horse, oversaw the deployments. “Rodes’ eyes were everywhere,” a Confederate noticed, “and every now and then he would stop to attend to some detail of the arrangement of his line or his troops, and then ride on again, humming to himself and catching the ends of his long, tawny moustache between his lips.” At some points the two armies fought on opposite sides of the entrenchments, the distance between them not being more than the length of their muskets. Again and again would Grant marshal his men for the onset, and right valiantly did they respond, but as often as they returned to the assault, so often were they repulsed as if they had rushed against a wall of iron. The battle raged all day in a steady heavy rain. Afternoon gave way to evening, and then dark, but not a cessation to the killing. “It was a night of unrest, of misery, of horror,” remembered Robert Park of the 12th Alabama. “The standing men would occasionally hear a comrade utter an exclamation as a stray bullet from the enemy pierced some part of his body and placed him hors du combat. And it was well that the men were kept standing, as I saw many of them walking by the right flank and then by the left flank, and in profound sleep, wholly unconscious of what they were doing.” Although the slaughter was great, the 5th Alabama Infantry Regiment would be fortunate to have had only a few casualties. Amongst them were two men from Company D. 2nd Lieutenant Pompey Jones was struck with a ball on the thigh, and Private H. C. Stephenson was shot in the head.

The following is a description of the fighting that day, by another member of General Battles’ Brigade. “Grant attacked our lines with densely massed columns, frequently five and six lines deep, at first owing to the thickness of the fog and suddenness of the onset, breaking over a part, capturing several thousand men of Johnson's division, and communicating a temporary panic to other portions of the field. Confidence, however, was soon restored, officers and men alike appreciating the necessity of retaking the captured lines to prevent general disaster. I shall never forget the scene of confusion that immediately succeeded this abrupt success of the enemy's demonstration. The scattered fugitives, the mingled shouts of enquiry and of apprehension, the multitudinous voices of command and entreaty, the faces of anxiety and dismay, the cries of the wounded, and the perpetual fusillades of musketry, made up a tour ensemble of the wildest character, which the obscuring mists of morning tended to intensify and exaggerate. Now it was that this brigade was called upon to lead a charge, which was made with a decision and an elan that has immortalized it in the Army of Northern Virginia, and which has even been celebrated in European correspondent's accounts of the doing and deeds of daring of this fearful day. Rising as one man with bayonets in charge and with a yell that rent the very conclave the lines rushed forward. Thro' the lifting fog the stars and stripes were seen waving over the captured works and the glittering steel of the foemen in serried phalanx arrayed. Heedless of the deep gaps made in their ranks as they were plowed by the merciless missiles of death, and deaf as it were to the shrieks of dying and wounded comrades as thick and fast they fell, onward pressed that gallant line of heroes -- onward and over all intervening obstacles -- onward thro' hissing shot and screaming shell -- onward towards the already wavering enemy -- onward after their now broken columns -- onward into the regained entrenchments -- onward to victory and then, with shout after shout which distant friends watching the result with intensest eagerness, repeated and the hills and valleys re-echoed, once again the battle cross of stars was planted on the ramparts! Several abortive efforts were made by the enemy subsequently during the day to retake the position, but they were each time easily and effectively repulsed. All along the lines the engagement was general throughout the long, long, day, but I can only pretend to describe the part enacted by my own brigade in the terrible and bloody drama. Its’ losses were heavy and conspicuous and many of its best and bravest spirits fell that day to rise no more until the trumpet of the Resurrection morn shall summon them before the great Captain! Nor shall I essay to paint the sanguinary horrors of the field, the scenes of wild, tumultuous, diabolic strife. This I have attempted in previous description and in its general incidents and concomitants, one great battle is like every other. I shall only say that the enemy was repulsed at all points, and that while our own loss was severe, that of the Yankees was from the very nature of the conflict immeasurably greater; and that night most welcome visitant found us with our lines entire and intact in every particular. I am here to remark that Grant whose brutal recklessness and indifference to human life has won for him the damning soubriquet of the "butcher" is estimated up to this night to have lost at least 4000 of his grand army! Much rain had fallen throughout the day, and during the weary and sleepless hours of the night, exhausted and shivering we lay in the muddy and bloody trenches while the air was rent with moans of the wounded. The sharpshooters of the enemy (to add to the discomfort) had attained a position from which they were enabled to enfilade our position of the line, and all night they kept up a continuous stream of fire over our heads so that it was hazardous in the extreme to raise up even for the purpose of shifting our uneasy position.”

Breast to breast, and bayonet to bayonet, the combatants had waged relentless war. The trenches ran blood and trees were cut down by musket balls. Battle’s Brigade had been in the thickest of the fight. No need to speak of regiments. The brigade was a solid wedge driven into the very heart of the enemy. .

On the morning of May 13, 1864, everything was quiet with the exception of a few shells being thrown by the enemy. The Confederates had abandoned “The Bloody Angle” and reformed their lines without encompassing the hill around the McCoull house. The Union troops probed to determine the new location of Rebel line. After skirmishers had confirmed the withdrawal of the Confederates, some of the Federal officers visited the “Bloody Angle”. They left the following, “Our own killed were scattered over a large space near the ‘angle’. In front of the captured breastworks the enemy’s dead, vastly more numerous than our own, were piled upon each other in some places four layers deep, exhibiting every ghastly phase of mutilation. Below the mass of fast decaying corpses, the convulsive twitch of limbs and the writhing of bodies showed that there were wounded men still alive and struggling to extricate themselves from the horrid entombment.” “In many places, the corpses had been chopped into hash by the bullets, and appeared more like piles of jelly than the distinguishable forms of human life.”

A Confederate from Daniel’s Brigade reported the following: “The pickets permitted me to pass, and I went over the breastworks to that portion of the field which had been occupied by our brigade, and then to the right, to the position which had been occupied by Ramseur's Brigade. On my arrival in this angle, I could well see why the enemy had withdrawn their lines. The stench was almost unbearable. There were dead artillery horses in considerable numbers that had been killed on the 10th and in the early morning of the 12th. Along these lines of breastworks where the earth had been excavated to the depth of one or two feet and thrown over, making the breastworks, I found these trenches filled with water (for there had been much rain) and in this water lay the dead bodies of friend and foe commingled, in many instances one lying across the other, and in one or more instances I saw as many as three lying across one another. All over the field lay the dead of both armies by hundreds, many of them torn and mangled by shells. Many of the bodies swollen out of all proportion, some with their guns yet grasped in their hands. Now and then one could be seen covered with a blanket, which had been placed over him by a comrade after he had fallen. .....These bodies were decaying. The water was red, almost black with blood. Offensive flies were everywhere. The trees, saplings and shrubs were torn and shattered beyond description; guns, some of them broken, bayonets, canteens and cartridge boxes were scattered about, and the whole scene was such that no pen can, or ever will describe it I have seen many fields after severe conflicts, but no where have I seen anything half so ghastly.”