 Williams, desperate to bolster the center of his line, divided the already thin ranks of the 6th Michigan into two shorthanded battalions.One battalion, under abolitionist Captain Chauncey Bassett, fended off an entire Confederate brigade at Magnolia Cemetery long enough to keep the Union center intact.Captain Harrison Soule’s Company I, with just 44 men and officers, stymied a flanking movement by the 6th Kentucky Infantry, buying critical time for artillery to engage.