around the town. A gap in the line occurred where the Columbia Pike entered the outskirts of the town, left open to allow passage of the wagons. Just behind the center of the formidable line stood the Carter House, appropriated as Cox's headquarters. Two Union brigades from Wagner's division were positioned about a half mile forward of the main line. Wagner, perhaps misunderstanding his orders, ordered his three brigades to stop halfway to the Union line and dig in as best they could on the flat ground. Col. Emerson Opdycke considered Wagner's order to be ridiculous and refused to obey it; he marched his brigade through the Union line and into a reserve position behind the gap through which the Columbia Pike passed, leaving the brigades of Cols. John Q. Lane, and Joseph Conrad in front. Hood's army began to arrive on Winstead Hill, two miles (3 km) south of Franklin, around 1 p.m. Hood ordered a frontal assault in the dwindling afternoon light—sunset would be at 4:34 p.m. that day—against the Union force, a decision that caused dismay among his top generals. Some popular histories assert that Hood acted rashly in a fit of rage, resentful that the Federal army had slipped past his troops the night before at Spring Hill and that he wanted to discipline his army by ordering them to assault against strong odds. Recent scholarship by Eric Jacobson discounts this as unlikely, as it was not only militarily foolish, but Hood was observed to be determined, not angry, by the time he arrived in Franklin. Regardless of Hood's personal motivations, his specific objective was to try to crush Schofield before he and his troops could escape to Nashville. The Confederates began moving forward at 4 p.m., with Cheatham's corps on the left of the assault and Stewart's on the right. Lee's corps, and almost all of the army's artillery, had not yet arrived from Columbia. Hood's attacking force, about 19–20,000 men, was arguably understrength for the mission he assigned—traversing two miles of open ground with only two batteries of artillery support and then assaulting prepared fortifications. Hood's attack initially enveloped the 3,000 men in the two brigades under Lane and Conrad, which attempted to stand their ground behind inadequate fieldworks and without anchored flanks, but quickly collapsed under the pressure. Many of the veteran soldiers of the two brigades stampeded back on the Columbia Pike