[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL R. S. EWELL]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL JAMES LONGSTREET]
Sleeping on their arms on the night of August 29th, the Federal veterans
were as confident of having won a victory as were the raw troops in the
beginning of the first battle of Bull Run. But the next day's fighting was
to tell the tale. General Ewell had been wounded in the knee by a minie
ball in the severe fight at Groveton and was unable to lead his command;
but for the impetuosity of this commander was substituted that of
Longstreet, nicknamed "the War-Horse," whose arrival in the midst of the
previous day's engagement had cost the Federals dear. On the morning of
the second day Longstreet's batteries opened the engagement. When the
general advance came, as the sun shone on the parallel lines of glittering
bayonets, it was Longstreet's men bringing their muskets to "the ready"
who first opened fire with a long flash of flame. It was they who pressed
most eagerly forward and, in the face of the Federal batteries, fell upon
the troops of General McDowell at the left and drove them irresistibly
back. Although the right Federal wing, in command of General Heintzelman,
had not given an inch, it was this turning of the left by Longstreet which
put the whole Federal army in retreat, driving them across Bull Run. The
Confederates were left in possession of the field, where lay thousands of
Federal dead and wounded, and Lee was free to advance his victorious
troops into the North unmolested.
[Illustration: THE BATTLE-FIELD OF SECOND BULL RUN (MANASSAS), AUGUST
29-30, 1862