POPE'S CAMPAIGN
The military authorities having decided to throw Burnside's troops up
the Rappahannock to reinforce Pope, General Stevens sailed from Newport
News on August 4, debarked at Acquia Creek on the 6th, and reached
Fredericksburg the same day. Here two light batteries were added to the
division, E, of the 2d United States artillery, under Lieutenant S.N.
Benjamin, with four 20-pounder rifled Parrotts and the 8th Massachusetts
battery, a new organization recently from home, enlisted for six months
only. The division was divided into three brigades, the 8th Michigan and
50th Pennsylvania, under Colonel B. C. Christ, constituting the first
brigade; the Roundheads and 46th New York, under Colonel Leasure, the
second; and the Highlanders and 28th Massachusetts, under Colonel
Addison Farnsworth, the third. Colonel Farnsworth was appointed colonel
of the Highlanders by the governor of New York, and joined his regiment
at Beaufort, but was absent on leave during the James Island campaign,
at the close of which he returned to it. Lieutenant H.G. Heffron was
appointed aide in place of Lieutenant Lyons.
Starting from Fredericksburg on the 13th, Generals Stevens's and Reno's
divisions, eight thousand strong, the latter as ranking officer in
command, stripped of all baggage except shelter tents, marched up the
north bank of the Rappahannock, passing Bealton Station on the
Alexandria and Orange Court House Railroad, crossed the river at
Rappahannock Station, and joined Pope at Culpeper Court House on the
15th. General Stevens bivouacked three miles in front of that point, and
on the following day was thrown forward to guard Raccoon Ford, on the
Rapidan River, which he held with a strong detachment, placing his
division a mile and a half back in support.
Pope's bombastic orders, and his invitation to forage on the enemy,
greatly increased straggling and relaxed discipline among his troops.
General Stevens ordered roll-calls at every halt, and at the end of
every day's march; reports of stragglers made daily, and prompt and
severe punishment inflicted upon such delinquents and upon plunderers,
and sternly stopped the evil in its inception. The 46th New York, a
German regiment, where even the commands at drill were given in German,
loaded some of its supply-wagons with lager beer on leaving
Fredericksburg, leaving behind a good part of their rations, having some
vague notion of living off the country. General Stevens at once had all
the lager thrown into the road, and the wagons sent back for the
abandoned rations. The indignation of Colonel Rosa and his officers rose
to such a pitch over this summary loss of their beloved beverage that
they tendered their resignations in a body, with a grandiloquent letter
from the colonel. But General Stevens emphatically assured them that
they must remain and do their duty as soldiers during the campaign, and
took no further notice of their insubordinate and unsoldierly action.
[Illustration: VIRGINIA--POTOMAC TO RAPIDAN RIVER]
On the 9th, only a week before the arrival of the two divisions of
the ninth corps, the severe fight of Cedar Mountain occurred between
Banks's corps and Jackson. The latter, although victor on the field by
force of numbers, was so badly crippled that he withdrew behind the
Rapidan the second day after the battle. Pope, on receiving these
reinforcements, advanced to the line of that river, and General Stevens
held his extreme left, a cavalry picket only watching Germanna Ford, the
next below Raccoon. The army, officially known as the Army of Virginia,
consisted of the corps of McDowell, Banks, and Sigel, and numbered forty
thousand effective. The ninth corps troops added eight thousand more,
and heavy reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac were on their way,
so that, if Pope could only hold his ground a few days, both armies
would be united in his advanced Position.
But Lee, safely leaving McClellan, with his great army, on the Peninsula
to his inaction, swiftly gathered his army opposite Pope, and, crossing
the river, advanced one wing under Jackson to strike him on the left and
rear, and the other, under Longstreet, to attack him in front. Pope
gained timely notice of this move by a lucky cavalry reconnoissance, and
withdrew to the Rappahannock just in time to escape it. During the 17th,
18th, and 19th General Stevens kept his officers busily engaged in what
he termed "looking up the country," that is, in tracing out all the
roads and by-roads, and studying the topography, defensive positions,
and approaches. He always attached great importance to a thorough
knowledge of the ground, and seized every opportunity to gain it.
Ordered, on the afternoon of the 19th, to move back his train
immediately, and his troops at two in the morning, by way of Stevensburg
and Barnett's Ford on the Rappahannock, General Stevens started off the
train at once, and at nine in the evening drew out his division three
miles on the designated road, which runs parallel to the river for a
considerable distance, and halted. By this movement he placed his whole
force in position to defend the ford till the last moment, and all
danger of being cut off by the sudden advance of the enemy was
obviated. The column resumed the march in retreat at two A.M., reached
Stevensburg at daylight, where it was detained an hour by General Reno's
train, that officer with his division having already fallen back, and
after a march of twenty-six miles crossed the Rappahannock at Barnett's
Ford, and went into bivouac at four P.M. That day the whole of Pope's
army fell back and took up the line of the Rappahannock, the ninth corps
on the left.
At dusk on the evening of the 21st, leaving four companies of infantry
and four light guns of the 8th Massachusetts battery at the ford, and
two companies at another ford a few miles higher up, General Stevens
marched eight miles up the river to Kelly's Ford, arriving at midnight,
and a day after General Reno.
The next day he recrossed the river with two brigades in support of a
cavalry reconnoissance by General Buford. Deploying the third
brigade,--the Highlanders and 28th Massachusetts,--he drove back a
considerable force of the enemy for more than a mile in a sharp action,
and, after accomplishing all that was expected or desired, withdrew to
the left bank.
On the 2d both divisions continued moving up the river ten miles to
Rappahannock Station, two regiments from each being left to guard
Kelly's Ford. Here were found the troops of McDowell and Banks. Sigel
was farther up the river, and his artillery was heard thundering in the
distance all day. Banks moved after him late in the afternoon. Both
armies were now moving up the Rappahannock, but on opposite sides. Lee,
foiled in his bold onslaught by the timely retreat of his antagonist,
and finding him strongly posted behind the river, was now pushing his
columns up the right bank, seeking to cross it or to outflank and turn
Pope's right, and Pope was carefully following his movement to head him
off.
On the 23d General Stevens continued the march up the river, followed by
Reno's division. Banks's troops and Sigel's train were soon overtaken,
blocking up the road; the march was continually interrupted and delayed
by them, and after struggling forward over the muddy and slippery roads,
pelted by a heavy, drenching rainstorm, until after midnight, having
marched only four miles in eighteen hours, the tired and bedraggled
troops were allowed to rest, or rather halt, by the roadside until
morning. During the day the troops left at the lower fords rejoined the
division, having been relieved by General Reynolds's division, the first
to arrive from the Army of the Potomac. On overtaking Banks's corps,
General Stevens had a talk with that officer, who was quite lame from a
recent fall, and looked thin and careworn. His troops had been sadly cut
up at Cedar Mountain, and his regiments, with their scanty numbers,
seemed reduced almost to the size of companies. All day Sigel's guns
were thundering up the river as though a pitched battle were raging,
but, as afterwards appeared, he was wasting ammunition on skirmishers
and single horsemen beyond the stream, while his enormous and
ill-regulated wagon-train was keeping back the rest of the army.
The march was resumed on the 24th, and Sulphur Springs reached late in
the afternoon. General Stevens, riding at the head of his column, was
here met by General Sigel, who requested him to take one of his (General
Stevens's) brigades and a battery, and destroy the bridge across the
river at this point, which the enemy's sharpshooters were making very
hot. Astonished at such a request, a virtual acknowledgment of his own
and his troops' inefficiency, General Stevens nevertheless promptly set
to work to comply with it, when the bridge was found to be in flames,
having been fired by some of Sigel's men.
On this day's march, as the division was halting for a noon rest, and
the soldiers were reclining on the ground in groups, or making their
cups of coffee over little fires of fence rails, a party of rebel
cavalry with a section of artillery appeared on a cross-road a mile
distant and near the river, and a lively shower of shells suddenly fell
over and among the resting troops. At this Lieutenant Benjamin very
coolly and deliberately unlimbered and sighted one of his 20-pounders;
the shell flew straight to the mark, fairly striking the annoying piece,
and the enemy beat a hasty retreat at this single shot.
The following morning, the 25th, General Stevens continued marching up
the river, and, on reaching Waterloo Bridge, was ordered to countermarch
and proceed to Warrenton. Arrived here, passing McDowell's corps
bivouacked along the road, the division rested some hours, then marched
for Warrenton Junction, and halted at midnight at a place known as
Eastern View, several miles from the Junction, to which it moved the
next day, the 26th.
Meantime the reinforcements were arriving from the Army of the Potomac.
Reynolds's division, 6000 strong, coming by way of Acquia Creek and the
Rappahannock, joined on the 23d and was attached to McDowell's corps. By
the same route two divisions of the fifth corps, under General Fitz John
Porter, reached Bealton on the 26th and the Junction the next day. They
numbered 9000 effective, and were commanded by Generals George W. Morell
and George Sykes respectively. On the 25th Generals Kearny's and
Hooker's divisions of the third corps, under General Samuel P.
Heintzelman, numbering 10,000 effective, were brought out on the
railroad from Alexandria to the same place, Warrenton Junction. With
these reinforcements, deducting losses and straggling, Pope's strength
was raised to 60,000. Lee's army numbered,--Longstreet, 30,000;
Jackson, 22,000; Stuart's cavalry, 3000; total, 55,000.[19]
On the 22d Lee attempted a crossing near Sulphur Springs, and threw a
heavy force of Jackson's troops across the river; but the storm, and the
sudden rise of the stream making the fords impassable, induced him to
withdraw. Thus baffled in his design of crossing at Sulphur Springs, and
finding that point and Waterloo Bridge, four miles above, held in force
by the Union troops, and well knowing that Pope's strength was
increasing daily by reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, Lee now
determined to push Jackson completely around the right of the Union
army, turning it by a circuitous but rapid march, and throw him on the
railroad in its rear, its sole line of supply, and to follow up the
movement with the other wing under Longstreet. Accordingly, on the 24th
Jackson moved back from the river to Jefferson, his troops being
relieved by Longstreet's; on the 25th marched by Amissville and Orleans
to Salem; and on the 26th continued his march through Thoroughfare Gap
and Gainesville to Bristoe Station, on the ill-fated line of
communications, which he struck at dark, capturing some prisoners and
two trains loaded with supplies. Bristoe is only eight miles north of
Warrenton Junction, about which so many Union troops were grouped; and
Jackson, by his bold move, had thrown himself fairly upon the back of
Pope's army. Without delay he dispatched a small force that night to
Manassas Junction, five miles down the railroad, and eight guns, three
hundred prisoners, and an immense quantity of stores fell into his
hands. Next morning, leaving Ewell to hold back the Union forces, he
moved the other divisions to Manassas, where they spent the day
outfitting themselves from the captured stores.
[Illustration: Positions, nine P.M., August 26, 1862.]
When this blow fell, Pope had his troops well in hand: McDowell and
Sigel's corps grouped about Warrenton; the four divisions of Stevens,
Reno, Kearny and Hooker near Warrenton Junction; while Porter at Bealton
and Banks at Fayetteville were within an easy march of the Junction.
Pope, having made up his mind that the enemy would fall upon his right,
was loath to believe that he had gotten into his rear in heavy force,
but he embarked a regiment on a train of cars and sent it down the road
towards Bristoe that night to find out. This reconnoissance reported the
enemy in force; but even yet Pope was not convinced, still clinging to
his opinion that his right, the line from Warrenton to Gainesville, was
most exposed to Lee's attack. Therefore, instead of throwing upon
Bristoe, at daylight the next morning, the overwhelming force he had at
hand near the Junction, he sent only Hooker's division down the railroad
to brush away the supposed raiding party, moved the other three
(Stevens, Reno, and Kearny) to Greenwich, and ordered McDowell and Sigel
to Gainesville; the former to take command of both corps, for he was not
satisfied with Sigel's dilatoriness in marching and obeying orders.
[Illustration: Positions of Troops, Sunset, August 27, 1862.]
Hooker encountered Ewell in front of Bristoe, and, in a sharp action in
the afternoon, pushed him across Broad Run, from which, after destroying
the bridge, he retreated unmolested to Manassas. As the result of
Hooker's fight, Pope now knew that Jackson with his whole corps was at
Bristoe that very morning, and had just marched--his rear division was
even then marching--down the railroad to Manassas. He supposed that
Longstreet was far to the westward, beyond supporting distance to
Jackson. Confident that the great flanker was at last within his power,
he issued vigorous orders for the morrow's movements, designed to throw
his whole army upon him at Manassas and crush him. To this end he
ordered Hooker to push down the railroad towards Manassas; Porter to
hasten from Warrenton Junction to support Hooker, starting at one in the
morning; Kearny to Bristoe; and Stevens and Reno directly on
Manassas,--the three to move at daylight; McDowell to advance his whole
force from Gainesville also on Manassas, with Sigel resting his right on
the Manassas Gap Railroad, and McDowell's divisions following in echelon
extended on his left, so that this great force would sweep a wide scope
of country,--practically the whole region between the Manassas Gap
Railroad and the Warrenton pike,--and would intercept Jackson's retreat
by that thoroughfare. This plan was well plotted to overwhelm the wolf
at Manassas, if the wolf would only wait there until the toils closed
around him. A day, or even half a day, would suffice. But Jackson was
not the man to wait anywhere long enough to give his adversary the
initiative. That night and early the next morning he moved to the field
of Bull Run, and took up a position admirable for defense, and from
which with equal facility he could attack any force moving along the
pike, or fall back westward by good roads to meet Longstreet, now
rapidly approaching.
It is a high, undulating country west of Bull Run upon which on June 21,
1861, and August 28, 29, and 30, 1862, were fought the battles of Bull
Run, Gainesville, and second Bull Run, or, as known to the Confederates,
Bull Run, Groveton, and Manassas. Long, broad ridges stretch across the
country, sloping down in successive rolls of ground to wide hollows.
Open fields cover two thirds of the surface of hill and dale,
alternating with tracts of woods, which clothe the remaining third.
These are of oak and other deciduous trees, and are tolerably open and
free from underbrush.
The Alexandria and Warrenton pike, running nearly west (west 15° south),
bisects the field, and was the most important line of communication upon
it. Crossing Bull Run by a stone bridge, the pike follows up the valley
of a tributary, Young's Branch, gently and gradually ascending for two
miles, and then passes over several ridges and high ground on to
Gainesville, five miles farther. Young's Branch has worn a deep and
narrow valley through the first ridge, a mile from the stone bridge, and
to the traveler passing up the pike the abutting ends of the ridge
present the appearance of quite steep and high hills. The first hill on
the left, separated from the next by a hollow down which a dirt road
descends, is the Henry Hill, the scene of the fiercest fighting of the
first battle, where Bee and Bartow, the Southern generals, fell, and
where Ricketts and his gallant battery were all but destroyed and were
captured. The next hill is the Chinn House, termed in some of the
reports the Bald Hill. Opposite these, and on the right or north side of
the road, are Buck Hill and Rosefield or Dogan House. The tops of these
hills are not peaked but flat, being simply the general level of the
plateau or ridge.
Another road scarcely less important crosses the field at right angles
to the pike, nearly on the line of this first ridge, passing between the
Henry and Chinn Hills, and Buck Hill and Rosefield. This is the Manassas
and Sudley road. From Manassas Junction, six miles to the south on the
Alexandria and Orange Court House Railroad, it runs in a northerly
direction to and over the plateau on the south part of the field,
descends by the lateral hollow to Young's Branch, where it crosses the
pike, and, climbing up the end of the ridge on the north, continues in
the same general direction over two miles to Sudley Ford across Bull
Run.
Another road from the south crosses the pike at a point two and a half
miles beyond the stone bridge, known as Groveton, and marked by two
houses and some outbuildings. This road, running north, descends down a
hollow from the plateau on the south, crosses the pike at Groveton,
passes across low or flat ground for half a mile, enters a tract of
woods, and extends through them to Sudley Ford.
One of the most important features of the second battle was a section of
railroad grade about two miles in length, which extended from the Run
near Sudley Church nearly parallel to the Groveton road for a mile and a
half, traversing thickly wooded but level ground with shallow cuts and
low embankments; then, curving westward away from the road and emerging
from the woods into the open, it crossed a hollow on an embankment,
which at one place was ten feet high, and bore away on its course to
Gainesville.
Standing at Rosefield, the eye of the observer sweeps westward or
frontward over a broad expanse of open country, descending to the lower
ground crossed by the Groveton road, and beyond it, over the rising
slopes and summit of a bare, high ridge two miles and a half distant, a
ridge much higher than the one on which he stands, and the dominating
feature of the landscape. To the right, or northward, open fields extend
nearly a mile, but to the right front is seen the extensive tract of
woods in which is concealed the railroad grade, and which covers the
broad flat between the two ridges. To the left or southward, across the
narrow valley of Young's Branch, appear the steep Henry and Bald hills,
really the verge of the plateau. They are bare of trees. But farther to
the west, the left front, a tract of woods, from two to three hundred
yards back from the pike, clothes the plateau. On the south side the
ground slopes up sharply from the Branch and extends southward in a
broad, high plateau, while on the north side of the pike the ground is
much lower, extending, as already described, to the Groveton road.
Bull Run bounds the field on the east and northeast, and can be readily
crossed by several fords as well as by the stone bridge. Among them are
Sudley Ford, over three miles above the bridge; Lock's or Red House
Ford, half way between these points; Blackburn's Ford, four miles below;
one a short distance above, and another alongside the bridge.
It was Thursday, August 28, 1862, that the first rays of the rising sun,
falling athwart the cloudless skies and warm but balmy air of a Southern
summer morning, revealed an animated scene,--throngs of gray-coated,
slouch-hatted men, yet with many a blue-coated one intermingled,
clustering thickly along the Sudley road near the pike, some of them
resting outspread upon the grass, others boiling tin cups of coffee and
roasting ears of field-corn over tiny fires of fence rails; long lines
of stacked muskets with bayonets glittering in the sun; guns and wagons
blocking the roads, while their teams of horses and mules were drinking
from the little rivulet, or munching their feed from the wagon-boxes.
Travel-stained, gaunt, and unkempt were these men, but their alert
bearing, and ready joke and laugh, told of unbroken strength and
confidence. They were Jackson's old division, now commanded by General
William B. Taliaferro. Among them was the brigade that a twelvemonth
before won on yonder hill the proud sobriquet of "Stonewall." In high
glee and spirits, they recounted and gloated over the incidents of the
previous day, how, marching swiftly clear around the flank of the Union
army, they struck the railroad in rear and almost in midst of its
extended columns, capturing guns, men, and immense stores of military
supplies at Manassas Junction; how, after loading themselves with all
they could carry and burning the rest, they left the Junction at
midnight, and after a short march were now regaling themselves with
captured Yankee rations upon the scene of the first Yankee defeat.
Soon the command, "Fall in," is passed along, and, resuming the arms and
packs, the dusty column continues its march. One brigade, under Colonel
Bradley T. Johnson, moves up the pike to Groveton, where it takes post
with pickets well out towards Gainesville and the road leading
southward; while the remainder of the division streams along the Sudley
road nearly to Sudley Church, where, turning to the left and crossing
the railroad grade, it again comes to a halt in the woods beyond it.
Scarcely had these troops cleared the road when another motley column
came crossing Bull Run by the pike and swinging up it at a rapid gait,
and they, too, followed the others down the Sudley road and into the
woods across the railroad. These were General Richard S. Ewell's
division of Jackson's corps, which left the Junction at daylight,
crossed Bull Run by Blackburn's Ford, marched up the left or east bank
across the fields, and recrossed by the stone bridge. And still another
column, General A.P. Hill's light division of the same corps, came
marching up from Centreville an hour later, following Ewell up the pike
and along the Sudley road, and also disappeared in the woods beyond the
railroad. Thus, soon after noon, Jackson had his whole corps of 20,000
effective men united, and hidden in the woods behind the railroad with
his train parked at Sudley, one brigade advanced to Groveton watching
the roads west and south, and General J. E.B. Stuart with his cavalry
guarding Bull Run bridge and fords and the Sudley road half way to
Manassas.
Now, leaving Jackson's "foot-cavalry," as his men delighted to call
themselves, resting under the oaks, the narration of the movements of
the Union army is continued, in order clearly to understand the bloody
and fruitless battles then impending.
Pope's right wing, as it may be termed, moved on the 28th as ordered;
reached Manassas about noon, only to find the smoking ruins of Jackson's
destructive visit; continued towards Centreville, and bivouacked for the
night,--Kearny at that point, Stevens, Reno, and Hooker near Blackburn's
Ford. Porter came up to Bristoe. Truly a sluggish advance, but Pope was
placing his chief reliance upon his left wing, under McDowell, which he
expected to sweep up from Gainesville and head off Jackson on the west
and north, while he assailed him on the south with his right.
The complete and ignominious fiasco which McDowell and Sigel contrived
to make of this movement is one of the strangest and most discreditable
episodes of this unhappy campaign. The previous day (27th) Sigel had not
moved his whole corps to Gainesville as ordered, but only the head of
his column, the main body of which was stretched back along the pike
towards Warrenton. The divisions of Reynolds, King, and Ricketts, of
McDowell's corps, in the order named, extended the column in rear of
Sigel still farther. Moreover, the road was incumbered by Sigel's train
of two hundred wagons, which he kept with the troops, although ordered
to send them to Catlett's Station, on the Alexandria and Orange Court
House Railroad, where all the trains were to assemble under guard of
Banks. Although ordered to move at daylight on Manassas, resting his
right on the Manassas Gap Railroad, and to be supported by McDowell's
corps in echelon on his left, Sigel made a late start, and at 7.30 was
halting at Gainesville, his troops building fires to cook breakfast and
blocking up the road, and finally, claiming that his orders were to rest
his right flank on the Alexandria and Orange Court House Railroad,
sheered off to the right after passing Gainesville, keeping on the right
of the Manassas Gap Railroad, upon the left of which his orders
explicitly directed him to advance, and in the afternoon reached the
vicinity of the Junction. From this point, after a start for Centreville
and countermarch, he moved down the Sudley road to the pike, which the
head of his column reached at dark. But he still held on to his train.
Reynolds, although greatly impeded by Sigel's troops and wagons, forced
his way past them, passed Gainesville, and moved down the pike towards
Groveton, in order to gain his required position upon Sigel's left.
Approaching Groveton about ten A.M., he flushed Jackson's advanced
brigade,--Bradley Johnson's,--and deployed and pushed forward his
leading brigade, under General George G. Meade. But Johnson drew back
into the woods on the west, concealing his troops; and Reynolds supposed
that the enemy was a mere scouting party, and sheered off in turn from
the pike to the right in order to follow Sigel as ordered. After a
laborious march across country on the left of the Manassas Gap Railroad,
he came out in sight of Manassas, and thence, moving by the Sudley Road,
he reached the vicinity of the pike and bivouacked near the Chinn House,
still on the left of Sigel. Thus these commands spent the whole day in
laboriously marching clear around the circle from a point just west of
Groveton to a point on the same pike a mile east of it, marching fifteen
miles to gain two!
General Buford, with his cavalry, by a bold reconnoissance developed
Longstreet's column at Salem on the 27th. McDowell, therefore, wisely
modified the order to move his whole force on Manassas by directing his
rear division under Ricketts, starting at one A.M., to move across from
New Baltimore to Haymarket, thence to Thoroughfare Gap, and hold
Longstreet in check. Ricketts was greatly delayed by the wagons and
troops blocking the road ahead of him, but reached the vicinity of the
Gap at three P.M. to find the enemy already in possession of it. But
deploying in position, and opening with artillery, he maintained a
resolute stand, holding him in check until dark, when he retreated to
Gainesville.
King, next to Reynolds in the column, was so long delayed that he was
five hours later in reaching the point near Groveton, where the former
caught a glimpse of Bradley Johnson's brigade. He was ordered to march
down the pike to Centreville. The leading brigade under Hatch had passed
this point, and the next brigade under Gibbon had just reached it, when
his column was subjected to artillery fire from batteries which suddenly
appeared north of the road. Deploying and advancing to drive them off,
Gibbon came face to face with extended lines of infantry advancing upon
him in battle order, and one of the most stubborn fights of the war took
place.
It was Jackson who, after lurking in his wooded lair all the afternoon,
watching the heavy masses of Union troops passing down the pike, and
successively sheering off near Groveton and marching away in the
direction of Manassas, now pushed forward the divisions of Ewell and
Taliaferro and attacked King's column. The field was a high, level, open
plain, without any cover except a small patch of woods and an orchard
and some farm buildings. Reports Taliaferro:--
"Here one of the most terrific conflicts that can be conceived of
occurred. Our troops held the farmhouse and one edge of the orchard,
while the enemy held the orchard and inclosure next the turnpike.
For two hours and a half, without an instant's cessation of the most
deadly discharges of musketry, roundshot, and shell, both lines
stood unmoved, neither advancing and neither broken or yielding,
until at last, about nine o'clock at night, the enemy slowly and
sullenly fell back, and yielded the field to our victorious troops."
This fierce conflict was sustained by Gibbon's brigade of four
regiments, two regiments of Doubleday's brigade, and Campbell's battery,
alone and without help from the remainder of King's division. General
Gibbon, after an hour and a half of this terrible struggle, finding
himself far outnumbered and outflanked on the left, ordered his line to
fall back, which was done in good order. His pickets occupied the ground
and collected the wounded. The enemy seems to have also drawn back to
care for the wounded and reorganize, for Jackson's report contains this
significant statement: "The next morning (29th) I found he had abandoned
the ground occupied as the battlefield the evening before."
It is incontestable that Gibbon's small force--six regiments and one
battery--thus gloriously sustained the attack of five brigades of
infantry and three batteries of artillery under Jackson's own direction.
The loss was about eight hundred on each side. Ewell and Taliaferro were
both severely wounded, the former losing a leg. During the battle
General Reynolds rode to the field from his bivouac, and aided Gibbon in
calling for support.
General Ricketts reached Gainesville with his division just as the fight
was over, having retreated from holding Longstreet in check. Thus at
nine o'clock that night, Thursday, August 28, Ricketts and King held the
pike from Gainesville to Groveton. Reynolds was in touch with King,
being a short distance east of Groveton, Sigel next to him; while Pope's
right wing was in the positions already stated, the ninth and
Heintzelman's corps between Blackburn's Ford and Centreville, Porter
east of, Banks at Bristoe.
Thus Pope's army was well positioned for a determined attack upon
Jackson the first thing the next morning by McDowell and Sigel, with the
right coming up early to support. Such an attack should have beaten
Jackson, if he accepted battle, but he could readily decline an unequal
struggle by drawing back to Haymarket and uniting with Longstreet's
columns. And it is clear that Pope's only chance of "bagging" or beating
Jackson was lost on the 28th by the dilatory, disconnected, and
purposeless marches of McDowell's wing.
[Illustration: Conclusion of Gibbon's Fight.
Positions, nine P.M., August 28, 1862; excepting Jackson's, which is
that occupied by him during the 28th, 29th, and 30th.]
But whatever advantage might have been gained from Gibbon's stanch fight
was speedily thrown away by King's decision to abandon the ground, and
that, too, after assuring General Ricketts, as that officer states, that
he would hold on. At midnight he retreated to Manassas, and General
Ricketts retreated to Bristoe. Both marched away from the enemy, and by
daylight their troops, exhausted and discouraged by being marched day
and night and made to shun the enemy, were strung out along the dusty
roads ten miles from where they were needed, while Lee's right wing was
swiftly marching to join Jackson, which nothing could now prevent.
Something may be said in palliation of this retreat. The enemy held the
ground in front of King, and might be expected to renew the battle in
the morning. The advance of Longstreet was through the Gap and in
contact with Ricketts, and only five miles distant, the afternoon
before. It was to be expected that the Confederate leader would lose no
time in pushing on to join Jackson, and he might move up during the
night, and fall upon the two Union divisions with his whole
force--thirty thousand men--at daylight. "No superior general officer
was in the vicinity with the requisite knowledge and authority to order
up troops," etc., says Gibbon.
But why they did not retreat down the pike, where were Reynolds and
Sigel close at hand, and by which King was ordered to move, is indeed
incomprehensible.
The chief responsibility for the series of blunders which rendered
abortive the movements of the left wing clearly rests upon McDowell, its
commander. His was the nerveless command that failed to make Sigel march
when and whither ordered; his the sluggish movements that left his
troops strung along the pike nearly to Warrenton, instead of
concentrating them about Gainesville on the 27th; his the mistaken
judgment that kept him from hastening in person that night to
Gainesville, the key-point to his whole movement, and, worse yet, that
led him to gallop off to consult with Pope the next day instead of
remaining with his command, keeping his divisions in hand, and pushing
them vigorously eastward along the railroad and the pike until he
developed Jackson's position. But McDowell was constantly conferred
with and depended upon by Pope, and had too much upon his mind the task
of manoeuvring the whole army.
During the day (28th) Pope was in a state of great uncertainty as to
Jackson's movements, but late at night, learning of Gibbon's battle, he
concluded that Jackson, while retreating up the pike, had been headed
off and stopped by McDowell's troops, and his hopes revived. He issued
his orders accordingly,--Kearny to move at one o'clock at night, even if
he carries no more than two thousand men, and to advance up the
turnpike; Hooker to march at three A.M., even if he shall have to do so
with only half his men; the ninth corps, also, all up the pike; Sigel
and Reynolds are to attack at earliest dawn; Porter to hasten forward to
Centreville.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] John C. Ropes, _Army under Pope_, pp. 193-199, gives Pope
71,000; Lee, 54,268. General Longstreet, _Manassas to
Appomattox_, gives Pope 54,500; Lee, 53,000. Colonel William
Allen, _Army of Northern Virginia_, puts "Lee's strength at
47,000 to 55,000; say over 50,000."