SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN, AUGUST 29, 1862, AT NOONExcept attacks on right, 4 to 5.30 P.M., as indicatedLarger image
SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN, AUGUST 29, 1862, AT NOONExcept attacks on right, 4 to 5.30 P.M., as indicated
Sigel’s troops are now pushing forward from the vicinity of Henry and Chinn hills. Schurz’s division, with Milroy’s independent brigade on its left, advances to the right across the pike, and, wheeling to the left, crosses the Sudley road and enters the woods which cover and screen Jackson’s left and centre, with sharp fighting pushes back his skirmishers, seizes part of the railroad, and develops the enemy’s position there. On the left of the pike Schenck’s division advances, with its right on the pikeand Reynolds’s division on its left. Schenck’s batteries take position on the ridges on each side of the pike near Groveton, and keep up a long-range cannonade with the enemy’s guns on the high ridge in front; while the infantry slowly works forward, unopposed except by artillery fire, to that point. Reynolds also moves forward, swinging to the right, and driving back the two Virginia regiments, until he reaches the pike half a mile or more beyond Groveton, where Gibbon’s battle began, and there finds the Union dead and wounded abandoned when King fell back the previous night. His line is formed along the road, facing north, and a short advance over the high ground will throw him on Jackson’s extreme right. One of Schenck’s brigades, Stahel’s, is on his right; the other, McLean’s, is in rear, or south of Stahel, and in the woods. It is now about tenA.M.It has taken four hours for Schurz to develop the enemy’s left and centre, and for Schenck and Reynolds to advance a mile and a half over an easy country and push back a handful of skirmishers; and they have not yet located Jackson’s right, although they have gained a good position from which to attack it. Their movement diverged from that of Schurz, and opened an interval in the line between Milroy and Stahel. The ground between them, indeed, was the open country on the right of the pike, commanded by their batteries, and the forward movement northward of the troops of Reynolds would soon have closed the gap. But Milroy was calling on Sigel for support, and for troops to fill the gap on his left. Schurz was also asking aid, and to meet their calls Stahel was hastily moved by the right flank across the fields towards Milroy.
Reynolds was not informed of this movement, but, discovering that the troops on his right had disappeared, and supposing that the whole of Schenck’s division had moved away, and observing a force of the enemy approaching his left, which was entirely in air, he immediately swung his division back, recrossed the Groveton road, and, finding McLean’s brigade in the woods, took position on its left with his line refused somewhat. It was Longstreet’s leading division under Hood just reaching the field that Reynolds observed, and it was probably well for him that he moved back so promptly.
Now the troops of the right wing are reaching the field. First Kearny, who moves across country north of the pike with Poe’s brigade pushing back the enemy’s cavalry and skirmishers along Bull Run, and comes up against Jackson’s extreme left, and on the right of Schurz. Then Stevens’s division marches up the pike to the crossing of the Sudley road, where Sigel is receiving Schurz’s and Milroy’s cries for aid, and listening to the thunder of his guns shelling the batteries of the enemy, with the fervid imagination of a war correspondent. Sigel, with the consent of Reno, as he claims, immediately scatters this fine division, sending one brigade to Schurz, another to Milroy, and the third, with Benjamin’s battery, E, of the 2d artillery, up the pike to Schenck. Reno’s division, which next arrived, was dissipated in like manner, Nagle’s brigade being sent to support Schurz, while the other with the artillery was placed in reserve on the ridge in rear of the Sudley road. Hooker’s division on its arrival was also divided, Grover’s brigade being sent to support Schurz; and afterwards Carr’s brigade was put on the front line, relieving part of Schurz’s force, and was in turn relieved by Hooker’s remaining brigade, under General Nelson Taylor.
It was not an uncommon thing during the war, as many an officer knows from dear-bought experience, for commanders of troops in action to beseech support, usually claiming that they were out of ammunition, or their flanks were being turned, and, when the reinforcementsreached them, to put the new-comers into the front line and withdraw their own troops to the rear. This was what Sigel did with the divisions of the right wing as they reached the field. Thus these fine troops, second to none in condition, discipline, andmorale, which, led by their own generals and thrown in mass upon the enemy, would have struck a mighty blow, were frittered away over the field, simply relieving other troops, and adding but little to the extent or strength of the battle line. Schurz, ever mightier with the pen than the sword, evinced a marvelous capacity to absorb reinforcements. And Sigel, having demonstrated his talents as a strategist and a marcher the previous day, now proved his ability on the battlefield by so scattering the seventeen thousand troops of the right wing as to deprive them of their own able and tried commanders, and reduce them to the least possible weight upon the fighting line.
His division being thus scattered, General Stevens led up the pike the brigade which was to reinforce Schenck. This consisted of only a regiment and a half,—the 100th Pennsylvania and five companies of the 46th New York, the other five companies being detached to guard trains,—and Benjamin’s battery of four 20-pounder rifled Parrotts. Approaching Groveton, two batteries on the right of the road, on the low ridge overlooking the hamlet, were exchanging shell-fire at long range with the enemy’s batteries on the high ridge a mile in front. Save this, no enemy was visible in that vicinity. The little column was moving without skirmishers in front, for it was said that our troops held the ground beyond Groveton, the battery first, followed by the infantry in marching column of fours. The general and staff had reached the cross-road, the battery was descending the slope in the road, which here ran in quite a cut gullied out by rains and wear, when an extended line of gray-coatedskirmishers emerged over the crest of the opposite ridge, two hundred yards distant, and, catching sight of the group of horsemen and the battery, quickly began firing upon them. It was impossible to turn the guns either to right or left out of the sunken road in which they were imprisoned; but Benjamin coolly led his battery thirty yards forward to where the banks were lower, the skirmishers coming nearer and their fire sharper every minute, then turned the leading team short to the left; the drivers plied the whip, the horses leaped up the steep bank, and with a sudden pull jerked the gun out of the cut. And piece after piece followed to the same point, and was extricated in like manner, and then, remounting the ridge, whirled into battery on the left of the road and opened fire. While Benjamin was thus extricating his guns, five companies of the 100th Pennsylvania dashed forward at double-quick, deploying as skirmishers across the cross-road, drove the enemy’s skirmishers back behind their ridge, and held their ground until withdrawn four hours later. The two half regiments were placed in line on the reverse slope of the ridge in rear and to the left of the guns. A short distance on the left were the woods, and in the edge rested the right of McLean’s brigade.
It was the skirmishers of Hood’s division that so nearly caught Benjamin’s guns. They were pushed out to feel and locate the Union position promptly after Reynolds drew back. Longstreet’s wing was fast arriving, and by noon four of his divisions were in position,—Hood across the pike, Kemper on his right, Jones still farther on their right, extending to the Manassas Gap Railroad, Evans’s independent brigade in support of Hood, and Wilcox’s division also supporting him on his left and rear. Two batteries of the Washington artillery took post on the high ridge with Jackson’s guns and added their fire.
With these additional batteries the artillery firing waxed heavier, and soon twenty hostile guns were hurling a storm of missiles upon the Union artillery at Groveton. After an hour’s firing Schenck’s batteries on the right of the road, Dilger and Wiedrich, went to the rear, out of ammunition, and for three long hours Benjamin was left to sustain unaided this storm of shot and shell. But Benjamin could plant his heavy, long-range shells with wonderful accuracy. He concentrated his fire on one battery, and ere long a caisson was seen to blow up on the distant ridge, and it ceased firing. Again and again he would concentrate on a battery and silence it, but only to have the others redouble their fire, and when he turned on them the first would reopen. At length two of his guns were disabled, and nearly half his men were killed or wounded.
Now, at twoP.M., Schenck concluded that he “was too far out,” because Reynolds had refused his line on the left, and he could get no fresh artillery to continue the duel on the pike. Sigel says that he sent him an order to retire, but that Schenck anticipated it, so the discredit of the move belongs to both of them. By order of General Schenck, General Stevens drew in his skirmishers and moved back down the pike, placing Benjamin’s two guns on an eminence of the Chinn Hill, and his two regiments on the right of the road in advance of the Rosefield House. Schenck and Reynolds moved back abreast to the western slope of the Chinn Hill.
Thus, in this sequence of withdrawals, it will be seen that after Schenck and Reynolds had gotten in position to strike Jackson’s right, although too late to do so without danger of Longstreet’s advance falling upon their flank, Schenck sent off Stahel’s brigade at Milroy’s calls. Reynolds then moved back, because Schenck had retired and left him unsupported, as he supposed, andalso because his left was threatened by Longstreet’s advance; and Schenck in turn moved back because Reynolds had withdrawn, although the latter had only refused his line, which, situated in open ground with the enemy in force in his front, was the right thing for him to do.
Our guns at Groveton could see along and flank the front of the Union line on the right as far as the railroad, and their thunder encouraged the troops on that wing, and deterred the enemy from aggressive movements which would subject them to an enfilade fire of artillery. The position was in truth a key-point, not only commanding the lower ground to the right, but also affording good ground upon which to receive an attack, or from which to advance, and, moreover, it covered the roads southward, by which Porter’s troops, as will be seen presently, were expected to join the army.
The drawing back of our guns and troops from Groveton was the signal for Jackson’s lines to push forward more aggressively. Milroy was roughly handled and forced back. It was General Stevens’s third brigade, under Colonel Addison Farnsworth, that was sent to support Schurz, and was posted on the front line along the railroad, next to Schimmelfennig’s brigade. Part of this brigade, on Farnsworth’s left, broke at the advance of the enemy, and fell back through the woods, but the Highlanders and Faugh-a-ballaghs stood firm and repulsed the attack. Soon afterwards the fugitives, having reformed, moved up in line from the rear, and began firing into the backs of the troops who had stood their ground, mistaking them for the enemy; but this was speedily stopped, and they were again placed on the line.
The experience of the first brigade was equally unsatisfactory. Placed in the first line, they were left to bear the brunt of the fighting on Milroy’s front, and were finally obliged to fall back by the giving way of troops on their flanks.
General Pope arrived on the field about noon, and made his headquarters in rear of the Sudley road, near Buck Hill. Although he declares in his report that he refused Sigel’s demands for reinforcements, it is clear beyond doubt that he neither put a stop to the wasteful scattering of his best troops, nor attempted to unite and bring them together as a disposable force of weight for offensive movements. All the afternoon he was expecting Porter’s and McDowell’s column to fall upon Jackson’s right and rear, for he had worked himself up to the belief that Longstreet would not be up for another day, and nothing short of disastrous defeat could shake his dogged belief.
On receiving news of King’s and Ricketts’s retreat from Gainesville and Groveton, which he did about daylight, General Pope ordered Porter to march upon Gainesville with his own corps and King’s division. “I am following the enemy down the Warrenton turnpike,” he adds. “Be expeditious, or we will lose much.” And later he dispatched a joint order to McDowell and Porter to the same effect:—
“You will please move forward with your joint commands toward Gainesville.... Heintzelman, Sigel, and Reno are moving on the Warrenton turnpike, and must now be not far from Gainesville. I desire that as soon as communication is established between this force and your own, the whole command shall halt.... One thing must be had in view, that the troops must occupy a position from which they can reach Bull Run to-night or by daylight.”
“You will please move forward with your joint commands toward Gainesville.... Heintzelman, Sigel, and Reno are moving on the Warrenton turnpike, and must now be not far from Gainesville. I desire that as soon as communication is established between this force and your own, the whole command shall halt.... One thing must be had in view, that the troops must occupy a position from which they can reach Bull Run to-night or by daylight.”
Porter had already passed Manassas on his way to Centreville when he received the first order, but immediately countermarched to the Junction and towards Gainesville as ordered, with Morell’s division leading, Sykes’s next, then Piatt’s brigade, and King following in rear. About eleven o’clock the head of the columnreached Dawkins Branch, an insignificant brook four and a half miles from Gainesville, and two and a half miles south of Groveton. Here the enemy was perceived, and skirmishers were thrown across the creek, supported by Butterfield’s brigade; and Porter was forming to advance on the enemy, when General McDowell joined him, and showed a dispatch from Buford as follows:—
“Headquarters Cavalry Brigade, 9.30A.M.Seventeen regiments, one battery, and five hundred cavalry passed through Gainesville three quarters of an hour ago on the Centreville road.”
“Headquarters Cavalry Brigade, 9.30A.M.Seventeen regiments, one battery, and five hundred cavalry passed through Gainesville three quarters of an hour ago on the Centreville road.”
The presence of the enemy in front, and clouds of dust rising along the roads in his rear, corroborated this dispatch. So, too, did the noise of the artillery combat at Groveton. The two generals rode together through the woods to the right as far as the Manassas Gap Railroad, but decided that it was “impracticable” to move northward a mile and a half across country to effect a junction with the right wing. McDowell then left Porter, telling him that he would take King’s division around by the Sudley road and put it in between Porter and the right wing. Except for some slight changes in position of the head of his column, Porter remained inactive the rest of the day, with his rear stretching back two and a half miles along the road. What befell King’s division, under McDowell’s guidance, will be seen later. Unquestionably, Longstreet was up and in position in time to resist the attack of McDowell and Porter, had they made one. And a board of three officers of great reputation and experience,—Generals Schofield, Terry, and Getty,—after a thorough examination, has declared that such an attack would have been ill advised, has applauded Porter’s conduct, and pronounced the opinion that his presence there that day saved the army from disaster.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that this great column of over twenty thousand troops was kept out of the ring completely. The orders given and objects to be gained were perfectly plain and simple. They were, first, to fall upon the enemy, supposed to be Jackson, and, second, to effect a junction with the right wing. McDowell and Porter did neither.
Granting that an attack was ill judged, why was not a brigade brought up and deployed athwart the railroad, and a regiment pushed through the woods northward to locate and connect with the force on the pike, whose artillery was distinctly heard? Traversing only three quarters of a mile of intervening woods, such a column would have reached open fields, and come in sight of Reynolds’s troops. But, more surprising still, why was no one sent up the roads which fork both from the road and railroad only half a mile back of the head of Porter’s column, traverse the woods in a northerly direction, and lead to Groveton? A staff officer sent up this road would have come in sight of Reynolds’s skirmishers in a ride of only a mile.
Unable longer to control his impatience, General Pope began about fourP.M.sending peremptory orders to attack, first to one command, then to another, as he could get hold of them, accompanying the orders with assurances that the enemy was being driven by some other command, and that Porter was about to fall, or was falling, on his flank and rear, and using him up.
The first victim of this plan of beating a corps in strong position by attacking it with a brigade at a time was General Cuvier Grover’s brigade, first of Hooker’s division, comprising five regiments,—1st, 11th, and 16th Massachusetts, 2d New Hampshire, and 26th Pennsylvania,—which was already supporting Schurz. With muskets loaded and bayonets fixed, ordered to close onthe enemy, fire one volley, and charge with the bayonet, they struck him where the railroad emerged from the woods and crossed the hollow on an embankment, broke the first line, carried the embankment, swept eighty yards beyond it and broke a second line, only to be forced back by overpowering numbers, with a loss of four hundred and eighty-six, for this gallant charge was entirely unsupported. Reports General Grover:—
“We rapidly and firmly pressed upon the embankment, and here occurred a short, sharp, and obstinate hand-to-hand conflict with bayonets and clubbed muskets. Many of the enemy were bayoneted in their tracks, others struck down with the butts of pieces, and onward pressed our line. In a few yards more it met a terrible fire from a second line, which in its turn broke. The enemy’s third line now bore down upon our thinned ranks in close order, and swept back the right centre and a portion of the left. With the gallant 16th Massachusetts on our left I tried to turn his flank, but the breaking of our right and centre and the weight of the enemy’s lines caused the necessity of falling back, first to the embankment and then to our first position, behind which we rallied to our colors.”
“We rapidly and firmly pressed upon the embankment, and here occurred a short, sharp, and obstinate hand-to-hand conflict with bayonets and clubbed muskets. Many of the enemy were bayoneted in their tracks, others struck down with the butts of pieces, and onward pressed our line. In a few yards more it met a terrible fire from a second line, which in its turn broke. The enemy’s third line now bore down upon our thinned ranks in close order, and swept back the right centre and a portion of the left. With the gallant 16th Massachusetts on our left I tried to turn his flank, but the breaking of our right and centre and the weight of the enemy’s lines caused the necessity of falling back, first to the embankment and then to our first position, behind which we rallied to our colors.”
One is not surprised to find the following in the report of Colonel William Blaisdell, 11th Massachusetts:—
“I was greatly amazed to find that the regiment had been sent to engage a force of more than five times its numbers, strongly posted in thick woods and behind heavy embankments, and not a soldier to support it in case of disaster.”
“I was greatly amazed to find that the regiment had been sent to engage a force of more than five times its numbers, strongly posted in thick woods and behind heavy embankments, and not a soldier to support it in case of disaster.”
Hooker’s third brigade, under Colonel Joseph B. Carr, earlier in the day had relieved part of Schurz’s troops, and after, as he reports, fighting two hours and expending most of his ammunition, was in turn relieved by the second brigade, under General Nelson Taylor. When Grover was driven back, Taylor’s left regiment was broken by the rush of fugitives; the enemy poured through the gap, giving an enfilade and reverse fire, and taking manyprisoners, among them General Taylor’s aides, Lieutenants Tremain and Dwight.
“Finding my line,” says Taylor, “completely flanked and turned, and in danger of being entirely cut off, I gave the order to fall back, which was done in as good order as could be, situated as we were. The loss on this occasion was not as large as I had reason to apprehend, yet it was considerable.”
“Finding my line,” says Taylor, “completely flanked and turned, and in danger of being entirely cut off, I gave the order to fall back, which was done in as good order as could be, situated as we were. The loss on this occasion was not as large as I had reason to apprehend, yet it was considerable.”
Scarce had these broken troops emerged from the woods and reformed in the open ground in rear, when General Reno led up his first brigade, under Colonel James Nagle, to a second attack on the same position from which Grover had been repulsed. This consisted of only three regiments,—48th Pennsylvania, 6th New Hampshire, and 2d Maryland. This also was a gallant and determined assault. Again the enemy was forced back from the railroad, but again his rear lines rushed forward, flanked Nagle on the left, and drove him back with a loss of five hundred and thirty-one.
Kearny was holding the right with Robinson’s brigade, while Poe’s brigade was guarding his right flank, with his skirmishers extending to and across Bull Run, and Birney’s brigade was supporting both. Now, after the crash of musketry of Reno’s attack had all died away, and his troops were all out of the woods, Kearny makes his attack. Reinforcing Robinson with one of Poe’s and four of Birney’s regiments, and throwing forward his right, wheeling to the left until his lines are nearly athwart the railroad, he charges along it to the left, driving the enemy in great disorder. But his attacking force lacks weight; the charge comes to a stand. They are assailed by two brigades from Ewell, those of Lawton and Early, outflanked, overpowered, and are forced back to the position from which they started; many of them, however, in broken and disordered crowds, run out of the woods farther to the left, near the same place whereappeared Hooker’s and Reno’s fugitives so recently. Eight regiments only out of Kearny’s fifteen make this attack. His loss was about six hundred. Nothing but the timely counter-charge of Lawton and Early saved Hill.
The rattle of musketry is still echoing in the forest, and Kearny’s fugitives are pouring out upon the open, when an officer in hot haste conveys Pope’s order to General Stevens to advance into the woods and attack. The only troops left him are the regiment and a half withdrawn from Groveton, only seven hundred strong. Without an instant’s delay, the troops take their muskets from the stacks, double-quick across the open ground, and form line at the edge of the woods. Kearny himself rides over to the little force just forming, and, at his request, Captain Stevens stops a moment to write an order or message for him, for he has but one arm. The scanty line enters and sweeps through the woods, encounters the enemy now holding the railroad, delivers and receives for fifteen minutes, which seem hours, a heavy musketry fire, and then, with the enemy swarming past both flanks, is forced back through the woods to the open ground, where the men at once halt and reform. Both the regimental commanders and Colonel Leasure, commanding the brigade, were severely wounded, and the loss was about two hundred. General Stevens’s horse was shot under him, and also that of his orderly. It was remarked that when his troops emerged out of the woods, almost the last one was a short man in a general’s uniform, followed by a tall orderly bearing a saddle on his shoulder.
With this attack the fighting on the right came to an end for the day. The possession of the woods along the railroad was relinquished to the enemy. A strong skirmish line held the edge of, and to the right a good part of, the timber. The troops were posted in rear ingood positions for the night, the scattered commands being collected. General Stevens’s brigades were gotten together after some search, and the division was posted in the woods a quarter of a mile to the right and a little to the rear of the place where Leasure’s brigade formed for the attack. The following incident, which illustrates the evil effects of scattering commands, is related in the history of the 79th Highlanders by Captain William T. Lusk, one of the general’s aides:—
“I was directed to find Farnsworth; was sent by Sigel to Schurz, and by Schurz to Schimmelfennig. The gallant German, when at last found, exclaimed, ‘Mein Gott! de troops, dey all runned avay, and I guess your men runned avay, too!’ General Stevens was indignant, and used some pretty strong language, when I carried back this report, and ordered me to find the missing regiments, and not to return until I brought them with me. I started, therefore, for the old railroad embankment. Luckily, I found Farnsworth just on the edge of the woods. He said he was waiting for orders, but had none since I left him in the morning.”
“I was directed to find Farnsworth; was sent by Sigel to Schurz, and by Schurz to Schimmelfennig. The gallant German, when at last found, exclaimed, ‘Mein Gott! de troops, dey all runned avay, and I guess your men runned avay, too!’ General Stevens was indignant, and used some pretty strong language, when I carried back this report, and ordered me to find the missing regiments, and not to return until I brought them with me. I started, therefore, for the old railroad embankment. Luckily, I found Farnsworth just on the edge of the woods. He said he was waiting for orders, but had none since I left him in the morning.”
But the day was not to close without one more useless slaughter of brave troops. McDowell brought King’s division along the Sudley road nearly to the pike, by half past four, passing without notice, at Newmarket, the old Warrenton turnpike, which here forked from the Sudley road and led to the unoccupied gap between Porter and Reynolds, to the very position where he told Porter he would put King. Pope first directed the division over to the right, where his attacks by detachments were being so disastrously repulsed, and finally, just as it reached the pike, ordered McDowell to push it up the road in pursuit of the enemy, declaring that he was in full retreat. McDowell gave the order and the encouragement. Gibbon’s brigade, which had suffered so severely in the fight the previous night, was placed insupport of batteries on the Rosefield ridge. The other three brigades, under Hatch (King being sick), fired by the lying promises of success, which were strengthened by the tremendous outbursts of musketry and roar of guns on the right wing, where they were told Jackson was being driven, hastened up the road with high hopes. Near Groveton, about dusk, they deployed,—Hatch’s brigade on the right of the road, Doubleday on the left, Patrick in reserve,—and pushed on with great confidence. But Longstreet, who all the afternoon had held his hand, notwithstanding Lee’s wish to attack, was at that very moment advancing Hood’s division, supported by Evans’s brigade and Wilcox’s division, with Hunton’s brigade of Kemper’s division on Hood’s right. The opposing forces encountered a short distance in front of Groveton, but the disparity in numbers was too great for the Union troops. The fight was furious but brief. Their left was outflanked and broken, and both brigades were driven back with heavy loss, including one gun. Patrick in some degree checked the enemy, who pursued considerably to the rear of Groveton. Night put a stop to the unequal struggle.
This ended the fighting of the 29th. The Union arms were outnumbered and repulsed in every encounter, and lost ground on both wings. Sigel’s dilatory and timid advance consumed the morning hours until, with Longstreet’s arrival, the chance of attacking Jackson’s right was lost. Sigel, too, may be censured for his importunate and unsoldierly demands for aid which so frittered away the weight of the right wing. But Pope on his arrival could have rectified this. Pope, and Pope alone, ordered the hasty and disconnected attacks of the afternoon, wasting the blood and impairing themoraleof his best troops. The four divisions of Stevens, Reno, Kearny, and Hooker numbered forty-three regiments, 17,000 effective, as fine troops as ever marched under the stars and stripes, and as well commanded. Had Pope, disregarding the clamors of Sigel and Schurz, arrayed these splendid troops in battle order on his right, and hurled them in one combined attack upon the enemy, pushing into the fight also Schurz and Milroy and twenty of the guns that were idling in the centre upon the ridge, Jackson would surely have been driven back upon Longstreet. The battle would then have raged on the heights beyond Groveton, the scene of Gibbon’s fight; and here Longstreet, with the advantages of position and greatly superior numbers, might have retrieved the day, or at least stayed farther Union advance, even though Schenck and Reynolds attacked his right with their utmost vigor. In such a battle Porter might possibly have turned the scale; but his troops, only partly deployed and stretching back along the road for three miles, were not in hand for prompt aggressive movement.
All that afternoon Lee was master of the situation. His army was united. Pope’s was divided; over twenty thousand of his troops out of reach and beyond his control. If Lee had struck with his right wing, Schenck and Reynolds, who alone confronted it, could not long have resisted the overpowering numbers, and Pope would have been driven across Bull Run. Porter could never have prevented the disaster. He could not have thrown his troops into the fight in time, unready as they were, and especially if the ground on his right was broken, difficult, and impenetrable, as he claimed, but mistakenly. It was Longstreet’s slow-paced caution that saved Pope that afternoon.
On McDowell’s arrival on the field Pope learned of Porter’s inaction, and immediately sent him a positive order to attack, which reached him at too late an hour to be executed. Pope thereupon sent him an order to march to the battlefield.
Early in the morning of the next day, the 30th, General Stevens went over to Pope’s headquarters, which were a short distance in the rear, and there found assembled Pope, McDowell, Heintzelman, Reno, and other general officers. Pope was confident that the enemy had retreated during the night, and, greatly to General Stevens’s astonishment, some of the others coincided in that opinion. He, however, strongly expressed the contrary view, whereupon Pope directed him to push a strong skirmish line into the woods in his front and try the enemy. Accordingly Captain John More, of the 79th Highlanders, one of the best and bravest officers in the division, with one hundred men of his regiment, skirmished into the woods and attacked the enemy with great spirit; but after half an hour’s sharp firing Captain More was brought out shot through the body, and a third of his men were killed or wounded. No impression was made on the enemy. General Early, who commanded a brigade in Ewell’s division, says in his report: “During the course of the morning the skirmishers from my brigade repulsed a column of the enemy which commenced to advance.” The Highlanders were withdrawn, and the result of their effort immediately reported to General Pope, but it had no effect upon his opinionated mind. By his positive assertions of driving the enemy and of his having retreated, he had imbued McDowell and Heintzelman largely with his own views. Thus filled with Pope’s ideas, and having little personal observation of the previous day’s battle, they hastily rode along the right wing, and came back and corroborated the mistaken views of the infatuated commander. One circumstance there was which lent color to them, and that was that during the night both Jackson and Longstreet drew back to their main line those troops that, in the eagerness of combat, had pushed beyond it. Yet there was scarcely a man in all the Unionarmy, except the army and two corps commanders, who did not bitterly realize that they had been worsted the day before, and who did not feel sure that the enemy was still in front, stronger and readier than ever to renew the battle.
Ricketts’s division reached the field the previous evening. In the morning two brigades were placed on the extreme right, relieving some of Kearny’s troops, and the other two brigades were left in reserve near the centre. Apparently no opportunity of dividing and scattering commands was to be lost. About nineA.M.Porter arrived with his troops, except Griffin’s brigade of Morell’s division and Martin’s battery, which by some error had retired to Centreville. The forenoon wore away without demonstration beyond considerable artillery firing. No reconnoissance in force was attempted.
At length at noon Pope issued an order, the most astonishing in its fatuity ever given on a battlefield:—
Headquarters near Groveton, August 30, 1862, 12M.Special Orders, No. —.The following forces will be immediately thrown forward and in pursuit of the enemy, and press him vigorously during the whole day. Major-General McDowell is assigned to the command of the pursuit.Major-General Porter’s corps will push forward on the Warrenton turnpike, followed by the divisions of Brigadier-Generals King and Reynolds. The division of Brigadier-General Ricketts will pursue the Haymarket road, followed by the corps of Major General Heintzelman. The necessary cavalry will be assigned to these columns by Major-General McDowell, to whom regular and frequent reports will be made. The general headquarters will be somewhere on the Warrenton turnpike.By command ofMajor-General Pope,George D. Ruggles,Colonel and Chief of Staff.
Headquarters near Groveton, August 30, 1862, 12M.
Special Orders, No. —.The following forces will be immediately thrown forward and in pursuit of the enemy, and press him vigorously during the whole day. Major-General McDowell is assigned to the command of the pursuit.
Major-General Porter’s corps will push forward on the Warrenton turnpike, followed by the divisions of Brigadier-Generals King and Reynolds. The division of Brigadier-General Ricketts will pursue the Haymarket road, followed by the corps of Major General Heintzelman. The necessary cavalry will be assigned to these columns by Major-General McDowell, to whom regular and frequent reports will be made. The general headquarters will be somewhere on the Warrenton turnpike.
By command ofMajor-General Pope,George D. Ruggles,Colonel and Chief of Staff.
The enemy he thus ordered pursued were at that moment, as they had been since noon the previous day, all up,posted in strong position, flushed with success, confident in themselves, well rested, and not inferior in numbers. And their skillful leader was only waiting the opportune moment to launch the mighty thunderbolt of war he so ably wielded. Such was the situation. But nothing had any effect upon the mind of the infatuated commander; the bloody repulses of the previous day, the loss of ground on both wings, the information thrust upon him by McDowell, Porter, Ricketts, and Reynolds that Longstreet’s advance had passed Gainesville before nine o’clock the previous morning, over twenty-four hours before, and that his forces had confronted Porter and Reynolds all the afternoon before,—all, all was disregarded, and Pope, impervious alike to reason and to facts, without a reconnoissance save the spirited push of the hundred Highlanders, gave the fatal order fraught with disaster to his army, and the acme of his own fatuity and incompetence.
But the officers charged with the execution of the order never attempted to carry it out according to its terms. With the exception perhaps of McDowell, they knew too well that it was an order impossible to execute. Ricketts, already in contact with the hostile line, reported that the enemy had no intention of retreating, and was ordered to hold his position. Porter made no effort to “push up the Warrenton turnpike, followed by the divisions of King and Reynolds.” The pursuit feature of the order was ignored by all, and instead of it a strong column of attack was organized against Jackson’s centre. This was composed of Porter’s troops and King’s division, under Porter’s command, and was slowly formed behind the screen of woods in advance of the right centre of the Union lines. Stevens’s division, two brigades of Ricketts’s division, and Kearny held the lines on the right. In rear of Porter and King, and in rear of the centre, were placed Hooker’s, Reno’s, and two brigades of Ricketts’s division,and all of Sigel’s corps except McLean’s brigade, which held the left, south of the pike, in front of the Chinn Hill. Reynolds with his small division extended the line on McLean’s left. Extending from Rosefield for a long distance toward the right, on the crest of the ridge, was planted a long row of artillery,—forty guns at least,—as near together as they could be handled, while other batteries were in rear, unable to find a place in the line. A few batteries occupied positions in advance of this ridge, and exchanged incessant fire with the enemy’s guns across the wide, open ground. Thus Pope bunched nearly his whole army in the centre, leaving his right weak, and his left wing a mere handful.
SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN, SECOND DAY, AUGUST 30, 1862Positions at 4P.M., and successive positions on left
SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN, SECOND DAY, AUGUST 30, 1862Positions at 4P.M., and successive positions on left
While Porter was slowly forming his column, his skirmishers pushed forward over the open ground nearly to Groveton. Reynolds, too, advanced his skirmishers on the left through the skirt of woods near Groveton, south of the pike, and discovered the enemy’s skirmishers extending far to his left and rear, “evidently masking a column of the enemy formed for attack on my left flank, when our line should be sufficiently advanced.” So important was this discovery deemed by Reynolds that he galloped instantly to Pope and reported it. How the information was received is graphically told by General Ruggles, Pope’s chief of staff, in a letter to General Porter, which the author is permitted to use:—
“At twoP.M.or thereabouts, Reynolds came dashing up, his horse covered with foam, threw himself out of the saddle, and said, ‘General Pope, the enemy is turning our left.’ General Pope replied, ‘Oh, I guess not!’ Reynolds rejoined, ‘I have considered this information of sufficient importance to run the gauntlet of three rebel battalions to bring it to you in person. I had thought you would believeme.’ Thereupon General Pope turned to General John Buford and said, ‘General Buford, take your brigade of cavalry and go out and see if the enemyisturning our left flank.’ Reynolds then said, ‘I go back to my command.’”
“At twoP.M.or thereabouts, Reynolds came dashing up, his horse covered with foam, threw himself out of the saddle, and said, ‘General Pope, the enemy is turning our left.’ General Pope replied, ‘Oh, I guess not!’ Reynolds rejoined, ‘I have considered this information of sufficient importance to run the gauntlet of three rebel battalions to bring it to you in person. I had thought you would believeme.’ Thereupon General Pope turned to General John Buford and said, ‘General Buford, take your brigade of cavalry and go out and see if the enemyisturning our left flank.’ Reynolds then said, ‘I go back to my command.’”
How clearly this incident reveals the infatuated, dogged state of mind that possessed Pope!
It is after fourP.M.when Porter gives the order to advance. The first and third brigades of Morell’s division in columns, under Butterfield, are in front, Sykes’s regulars are in support. King’s division, under Hatch, advances on the right of Butterfield in a column seven lines deep, with intervals of fifty yards between the lines. Sweeping through the woods, they come in sight of the railroad embankment and the wooded hill beyond it. Instantly the whole side of the hill and edges of the woods swarm with men before unseen. Says General Warren in his report: “The effect was not unlike flushing a covey of quails.” A terrific musketry is poured upon the advancing column, while a storm of shell and shrapnel smite its flank with most deadly fire from the batteries on the ridge to the left front. With hearty cheers, the advancing troops desperately charge the embankment and railroad cut on the right of it, and when repulsed, charge again, and then cling to their ground and open steady musketry. All in vain. Longstreet throws two more batteries forward on the ridge, and fatally enfilades the struggling troops. “Butterfield’s troops are torn to pieces,” says Sykes. In half an hour all is over, the repulse is complete, and the shattered troops move sullenly back, bearing out many wounded. In that short time they have lost 700 men.
General Stevens, having formed his divisions in three lines, each a brigade, moves forward through the woods on the right of Porter’s column, and, without waiting for orders, attacks simultaneously with him, at once becomes furiously engaged, and suffers heavy loss, including Colonel Farnsworth, who is severely wounded. GeneralStevens maintains this contest until Porter’s column is repulsed, when he withdraws his command to the first ridge in rear of the woods, posting his lines just behind the crest, with skirmishers holding the edge of the woods.
Porter’s attack, made nearly at the same point as Grover’s, did not penetrate the enemy’s position so deeply. With only 2500 men, the latter broke two lines and swept eighty yards beyond the embankment, while Porter with 12,000 men did not carry the embankment. But how different the conditions under which he attacked,—the enemy in stronger force, better prepared, and Longstreet’s terrible artillery tearing to pieces the flank of the columns! And is not something due themoraleof his troops, which was almost systematically broken by the blunders and disasters of this unhappy campaign? With what confidence could King’s division be expected to charge, which, after marching all day Thursday, sustained the fierce and stubborn fight near Groveton with Jackson’s two divisions, then moved away at midnight, abandoning their wounded and the field they had so bravely won; then marching all the next day, with occasional halts, until at dusk they were brought upon the field, and, deceived with false hopes of success, were dashed against overpowering masses of the enemy almost on the scene of their recent battle, and only twelve hours after it, and were broken and driven back with disaster; and the third day—Saturday—were exposed to shell fire for several hours, while slowly taking place in the attacking column, knowing full well that they were about to be hurled against the very centre and strongest part of the enemy’s position, from which every attack of the previous day had been met with bloody repulse,—“Where even privates realized,” says Colonel Charles W. Roberts, commanding Morell’s first brigade, “that they were going into the jaws of death itself”?Clearly, this was not such an attack as these troops would have made if in their normal condition, and with any hopes of success. And their able commander did not drive it home with the full weight and vigor of one who, confident of success, puts in the last man and the last effort. Sykes’s division was not brought up to renew the charge upon the railroad, for Porter, seeing that success was hopeless, wisely used it to cover the falling back of Butterfield and Hatch.
The enemy’s reports bear abundant witness to the gallantry and severity of Porter’s charge, which shook Jackson so that even he called aloud for assistance. In his report he says:—
“The Federal infantry, about four o’clock in the evening, moved from under cover in the woods and advanced in several lines, first engaging the right, but soon extending its attack to the centre and left. In a few minutes our entire line was engaged in a fierce and sanguinary struggle. As one line was repulsed, another took its place and pressed forward, as if determined, by force of numbers and fury of assault, to drive us from our positions. So impetuous and well sustained were these onsets as to induce me to send to the commanding general for reinforcements.”
“The Federal infantry, about four o’clock in the evening, moved from under cover in the woods and advanced in several lines, first engaging the right, but soon extending its attack to the centre and left. In a few minutes our entire line was engaged in a fierce and sanguinary struggle. As one line was repulsed, another took its place and pressed forward, as if determined, by force of numbers and fury of assault, to drive us from our positions. So impetuous and well sustained were these onsets as to induce me to send to the commanding general for reinforcements.”
Says Colonel Bradley T. Johnson, who commanded the second brigade of Ewell’s division:—
“Before the railroad cut, the fight was most obstinate. I saw a Federal flag hold its position for half an hour within ten yards of the flag of one of the regiments in the cut, and go down six or eight times; and after the fight one hundred dead were lying within twenty yards from the cut, some of them within two feet of it. The men fought until their ammunition was exhausted, and then threw stones. Lieutenant Lewis Randolph killed one with a stone, and I saw him after the fight with his skull fractured.”
“Before the railroad cut, the fight was most obstinate. I saw a Federal flag hold its position for half an hour within ten yards of the flag of one of the regiments in the cut, and go down six or eight times; and after the fight one hundred dead were lying within twenty yards from the cut, some of them within two feet of it. The men fought until their ammunition was exhausted, and then threw stones. Lieutenant Lewis Randolph killed one with a stone, and I saw him after the fight with his skull fractured.”
With Porter’s repulse comes Lee’s opportunity, the opening for which he has so coolly waited the better partof two days. Longstreet, anticipating the order to advance, throws forward his whole wing in one of those overwhelming attacks for which he became famous. At first there seems to be almost nothing to oppose the avalanche. Pope has just ordered Reynolds’s division to the right of the pike to aid in protecting Porter’s withdrawal, although more than half the army was bunched together there in the centre, and Meade’s and Seymour’s brigades and Ransom’s battery have taken the new position. Colonel G.K. Warren, of Sykes’s division, without waiting for orders, seeing Hazlett’s battery, which was well advanced on the pike, uncovered by Reynolds’s movement, has just hurried his little brigade of two regiments, 5th and 10th New York, over to the left of the road to support the battery, when the storm bursts upon him. Furiously assailed in front, masses of the enemy come swarming through the woods on his left and rear, and it is only by breaking to the rear that any escape capture. His loss is four hundred and thirty-one, but the few minutes he holds back the enemy saves the guns. Reynolds’s remaining brigade, under Anderson, with three batteries, in the act of moving to the right as ordered, is suddenly assailed with fury and forced to turn and fight where it stands, and now bears the brunt of the onslaught. Under cover of the woods, the enemy has completely turned the flank of all the Union positions, as Reynolds had told Pope only an hour before, and now strikes them with heavy masses of infantry on both front and left. After a gallant resistance Anderson is forced back, with the loss of four guns of Kerns’s battery and the caissons of Cooper’s. McLean, who sees with amazement Reynolds’s division move away, leaving him to hold the hill alone, at once deploys his brigade, facing westward, and receives the attack. He now changes front to the left, and in a magnificent charge drives back theflanking forces of the enemy, but has to offer his right in the movement to the deadly enfilade fire from his former front, and he, too, bravely struggling, is borne back over the Chinn Hill. Meantime the generals in the centre are making frantic efforts to hurry troops over to the left. General Zealous B. Tower, distinguished for his gallantry in the Mexican war, one of the ablest officers of the army, leads the two reserve brigades of Ricketts across the pike and up the Chinn Hill, where McLean is being overborne; but, before he can reach a good position, his men are falling by scores, he is stricken down with a severe wound,—disabled for life and his career in the field closed,—and ere long his brigades are driven back. Colonel Koltes, of Sigel’s corps, leading his brigade to the same position, is killed, and his troops, too, are forced back. General Schenck, leading reinforcements to McLean, is wounded. The enemy have driven the last defenders from the Chinn Hill and plateau, and their exultant lines go sweeping on to complete the victory. But Reynolds, with Meade’s and Seymour’s brigades, and Milroy with his brigade, are now formed in line upon the slope of the Henry Hill, along or near the Sudley road, and throw back the charging Confederates with deadly fire, and soon Sykes’s regulars, Buchanan’s and Chapman’s brigades, and Weed’s battery reinforce the hard-pressed and struggling line, extending it farther to the left and rear. The enemy cannot break it, but his fire fast thins its ranks, and his flanking movement and deadly enfilade still continue. At last night is at hand, and the fury of his attack abates. The defenders, spent with heavy loss and the hard struggle, now fall back; but General Reno has just led his second brigade and Graham’s battery up the hill, and forms his three regiments, 21st Massachusetts, 51st Pennsylvania, and 51st New York, around its crest in a thin line facing both the Chinn Hill and thewoods on the left, with the guns in the intervals between the regiments. In this position he repulses after dark two attacks of Wilcox’s troops, the last efforts of Longstreet’s mighty onslaught. After nine o’clock, after the fighting had ceased, he quietly retires from the hill and marches to Centreville.
In the centre Jackson’s right followed up Porter’s retreating troops sharply; but the fire of the numerous guns searching all the open ground there, and the firm attitude of our troops, kept them at bay. But when the Chinn Hill was lost, and the enemy’s fire from there smote the troops of Sigel holding the centre near the pike, they were forced to fall back to the ridge, where they took up a new position behind the Sudley road.
As soon as Longstreet’s attack was well in progress, all the rebel guns upon the high ridge were turned upon our right, for they dared not continue firing upon the left and centre for fear of injuring their own troops now swarming onward against the Union positions, and the concentric fire of forty guns now pounded with a perfect hail of shot and shell the Union troops and batteries on that wing. The men there lay hugging the ground in rear of the guns, partially sheltered by the low ridges, while the artillery fired with its utmost rapidity upon the rebel lines of battle emerging over the distant ridge and advancing down the slope until lost to view in the woods, or beneath the smoke which now hung over the lower ground. They swept onward in splendid order, not in one or two long lines, but regiment after regiment, separately, with blood-red colors proudly borne aloft and pointed forward, like wave after wave of ocean after a storm, rolling onward with resistless majesty and power. From the great battery in our centre belched a mighty and continuous roar and volume of thunder, and dense clouds of dusky, sulphurous smoke rolled over the landscape in front; while beyond it, on the left, but apparently beneath its folds, rose the incessant clatter and crackle of musketry, with now and again the heavier, sharper noise of great volleys, telling of the dreadful struggle raging there. Surely there are no sights and sounds more terrible than those of a great battle.
When this scene of pandemonium was at its height, General Stevens quietly remarked to General Ricketts, as they stood near one of our batteries watching the fight on the left front: “If we can hold the right here, the enemy must be repulsed, for General Pope has nearly all his troops over there, and can certainly repel any attack on his left.”
Soon after this General Reno was standing with General Stevens near the same point. The battery had ceased firing, for the enemy’s infantry were no longer visible. Suddenly a tall young fellow, in a Union sergeant’s uniform, came running up the slope from the woods two hundred yards in front, and cried out, “Don’t fire on that regiment; it is the 26th New York. It has been in the woods, and is just coming out. Don’t fire! Don’t fire!” All looked, and there, at the edge of the woods, was a line of troops in blue uniforms just forming. General Reno turned to General Stevens, as if in doubt; but Captain Stevens, knowing that the enemy’s skirmishers held the edge of the woods ever since ours were drawn in, impulsively called out to the battery, “Fire! They are rebels! Fire!” The guns instantly fired upon them, and as quickly they disappeared, melted, into the woods. The sergeant, too, had disappeared, when we turned to find him, having made good use of his long legs to rejoin his companions when his bold ruse failed.
A little later, when the great struggle on the left was still raging, a mounted officer came galloping at high speed down to the line and delivered an order from General Pope to retreat. “General Pope orders the right wing to fall back at once. The enemy has turned the left, and if it remains half an hour longer, it will be cut off and captured.” With this, back he raced, faster, if possible, than he came. Very deliberately and quietly General Stevens gave the necessary orders, cautioning his colonels against haste or flurry. One by one the guns ceased firing, and were limbered up and taken to the rear. When the last one had gone, the infantry rose to their feet, and marched back in usual marching column. Out of the woods in front the enemy were swarming like angry bees in clouds of skirmishers, and beginning to push up the slope. By the time our troops had moved two hundred yards back from the little ridge or roll of ground they had just left, the enemy came pouring over it in considerable numbers. But General Stevens had thrown his two rear regiments in line, and they opened with a well-aimed volley, which instantly cleared the ridge of the pursuers. The regiments promptly resumed the retreat, and four hundred yards farther back filed past two more of General Stevens’s regiments, which in like manner stood in line ready to repel too hot a pursuit. At this moment General Kearny came from the right at the head of a small force, apparently a regiment, passing along the rear side of a point of woods which extended to near where General Stevens’s line stood. Just then the enemy began firing out of this cover. Instantly Kearny fronted his scanty force into line and dashed it into the woods; but quickly a sharp volley resounded in the timber, and his men came running out, and continued to the rear, pursued by the enemy’s skirmishers in equal disorder. Upon these the waiting line poured a deliberate volley, and back they went running into the woods. The troops, after administering this sharp rebuff, filed off to the rear unmolested, and moved over a prominentridge a thousand yards back, along the crest of which was drawn up in line a part of Ricketts’s division, apparently a brigade. It was now fast growing dark. General Stevens, knowing that the pike would be crowded with retreating troops, wished to cross Bull Run somewhere above the bridge, and sent for Major Elliott, of the Highlanders, who was at the first battle of Bull Run, and might know of some practicable ford. This proved to be the case; and after some little delay the division, guided by Major Elliott, crossed at Locke’s or Red House Ford, and moved by a cross-road to the pike, where, finding the main road jammed full of troops and artillery flowing past in a dense column, General Stevens bivouacked till morning, when he moved to Centreville.
While the division was waiting on the ridge behind Ricketts’s troops, they opened with a sudden volley, as startling as unexpected, in the darkness. The enemy, pursuing, were advancing up the hill when this volley stopped them, and, falling back to the foot of the ridge, they lay there all night. Ricketts’s brigade immediately moved off to the left by a farm road to a ford a short distance above the bridge, where they crossed. Soon after these troops had filed away in the darkness, General Stevens sent Lieutenant Heffron, one of his aides, to the crest which they had just left, telling him to observe, try if he could see or hear the enemy, and come back and report. After sufficient time had elapsed for Heffron to have performed the duty, he sent Captain Stevens on a similar errand, for his column was not quite ready to move; owing to delay in finding out about the ford, and there was nothing between it and the enemy. He, too, rode back to the crest, gazed into the darkness, listened intently, without catching sight or sound, and started to ride down the front of the ridge to make sure of the enemy’s position, when the reflection that Heffron hadprobably done that very thing and had not returned caused him to turn back and rejoin his command, the rear of which was just moving off. Heffron had ridden down the slope and into the enemy’s line at its foot, and was captured.
At this time two brigades of Kearny’s division, which, being more in rear than Ricketts’s, had moved back before him, were on or in front of the ridge, only a musket-shot to the left of the enemy lying at its foot, each force ignorant of the other’s presence, and remained there until tenP.M., when they retreated by the same route as Ricketts. Poe’s brigade, on the extreme right, fell back, and recrossed the run by the same ford as General Stevens’s division, and before it. Thus the troops of the right wing made good their retreat in perfect order and without loss, except that of some guns of Ricketts.[20]
General Pope in his report, after claiming that he repulsed the enemy at all points, states that he gave the order to withdraw to Centreville after eight o’clock at night. No doubt he did give such an order at that time, but he suppresses all mention of the orders he gave to retreat and fall back long before that time, when he saw his left being turned and overpowered, and, his presumptuous confidence knocked out of him, thought more of saving part of his army than of repelling the enemy. And then it was, about sixP.M., that so many troops were hurried off the field in retreat to Centreville, among them Nagle’s brigade, of Reno’s division, two brigades of Hooker’s, King’s division, and some of Sigel’s troops in the centre, and the whole of the right wing; and then, too, it was that he dispatched the order to General Banks at Bristoe Station to destroy the public property andretreat to Centreville. At that time the head of Franklin’s corps of the Army of the Potomac was up to the stone bridge on its march to reinforce Pope, and might have been used to maintain his battle. But that commander already had more men on the field than he was capable of using. Under the leadership of a Sheridan, a Grant, a Meade, or a Thomas, his gallant army would never have retreated from the field, and might have inflicted a deadly blow upon its antagonist. How bravely and even desperately the Union troops fought is best attested by the Confederate reports, and the nine thousand Confederate losses in killed and wounded. The Union loss, including that of the 28th, amounted to fourteen thousand. That at the end of the battle there was disorder and demoralization among some commands it were idle to deny, but it has been grossly exaggerated.