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North of Bull Run
Maj. William Patrick dismounted his six companies of the 1st
Virginia Cavalry on a mission to turn back an entire brigade of Phil Kearny’s
northerners that had crossed Bull Run and were now threatening the supply
wagons for Jackson’s wing of the Confederate army. He advanced them to the
omnipresent Unfinished Railroad. The Union brigade commander reported:
“I saw the enemy’s skirmishers deployed to meet us along the
line of the railroad, and could see the glistening of the bayonets of the
supports in the cornfield beyond [in fact, stragglers].”
His skirmishers, the 2nd Michigan, moved up the
hill steadily, until they were almost in range of Patrick’s dismounted cavalry.
Suddenly, Pelham’s horse artillery opened fire from its position near Sudley
Ford, behind the Michiganders, and to their left. “At this moment,” a member of
the regiment wrote, “we got orders to face about and ‘double quick’ to the
shelter of the wood. We had to pass through a perfect hail of grape and
canister which ripped the sod under our very feet. In noticeable gusts the
missiles swept through our ranks.”
Patrick’s men pursued, to add extra impetus for the Union
withdrawal, and the brigade took cover in the woods under the cover of Union
artillery fire. The bluff had worked, Kearny sent orders to pull the brigade
back across Bull Run, but Maj. Patrick had been killed in the process, the
price for defeating the Union’s best chance at winning the battle.
Sudley Springs
While Kearny maneuvered, Maxcy Gregg’s South Carolinians
were about to break the men Kearny was supposedly supporting. The 12th
South Carolina lead the charge, hammering into the right flank of the
overextended 1st New York, trying to cover the gap between the two
brigades of Carl Schurz. “The 12th charged in the most gallant
manner,” its colonel reported, “firing as it advanced, and putting the enemy completely
to rout, pursued them with heavy slaughter through the woods and until they
crossed the field beyond and ran out of sight.”
Every man in his division already fighting, Schurz rode
forward personally to try to rally his scattered regiments. The 29th
New York had pivoted to try to give the 1st New York to reform after
the brutal assaults of the South Carolinians, but they were quickly becoming
overwhelmed too, as the 1st Rifles of South Carolina sharpshooters
caught up with their fellow Palmetto Staters. Schurz personally rode through
the scattered 54th New York, bellowing appeals to their patriotism.
It gathered enough men to send help to the 29th, buying enough time
for an as-yet-unengaged brigade from the First Corps reserves to arrive and
stabilize the line. The South Carolinians slowly fell back to the railroad.
The immediate crisis passed, Schurz received an order from
Maj. General Franz Sigel, still in command of the field, for his and Kearny’s
division to begin an all out attack on the Confederates in front of them.
Perhaps Sigel still believed that it was only several divisions and wanted to
break through to defeat the force at Brawner’s Farm, or perhaps he had realized
that Jackson was not retreating, but in line from Brawner’s to Sudley Springs
and wanted to prevent him from concentrating all his men against Schenck to the
southwest. Either way, Schurz put his men into motion for a counterattack, and
prayed for Kearny’s guns to start firing.
Groveton
Whatever his understanding of Jackson’s total position,
Sigel had directed almost all of his artillery fire on the Confederates of
Ewell’s division (led by Lawton since Ewell’s injury) that was threatening to
overrun Robert Milroy’s brigade. Milroy had not well economized use of his
force and sent a small portion of it into a hornet’s nest that was now
threatening to split the Northern forces in half.
Now Milroy, with his brigade reunited and with a brigade of
reinforcements from Robert Schenck, had formed his men up in an open field and
the Confederate artillery was returning the favor. The two brigades of Union
men were being cut to pieces, when Joe Hooker arrived. Recognizing the
futileness of the ground immediately, Hooker sent one regiment into battle to
stem the Confederate advance, while holding the rest of his division behind a
ridge to the east of the Groveton woods. He sent orders for Milroy to pull back
his men along this new line he had established.
Brawner’s
South of Brawner’s Farm, Robert Schenck was missing the
brigade he had sent to Milroy. Longstreet was continuing to spread his men to
the south, threatening to outflank Schneck’s support, the division of John
Reynolds that now outnumbered the division he was supposed to be supporting by
three-to-one. Reynolds had already decided to fall back to Lewis Lane [Groveton
Rd], and Schneck regrettably joined him.
Northwest of Manassas Junction
While gloomily riding behind Fitz John Porter’s Fifth Corps,
Army of the Potomac, Irvin McDowell was interrupted by a messenger from army
commander John Pope. The messenger gave him the Joint Order, which said that
Porter and McDowell should operate together, but which more importantly to
McDowell restored King’s division to his command. He had hardly finished
reading it, when Buford’s report from Gainesville arrived about the movement of
Longstreet’s wing of the Confederate army. With both in hand, he rode forward
along the long column to find Porter.
Porter had already received the joint order, and the two
discussed the situation. McDowell casually repeated Buford’s intelligence about
Longstreet, but did not place much emphasis on it. Porter’s skirmishers
appeared to be firing at Longstreet’s men, and McDowell could see a large dust
cloud up ahead, that he assumed was from it. They must be moving east on the Warrenton
Turnpike [US 29], he told Porter, towards Reynold’s division and Sigel’s
corps—both supposed to be under McDowell—and so it was essential to execute the
discretion allowed by the Joint Order.
Assuming because of the dust cloud that the Turnpike was not
far off, McDowell decided to turn his men around and then move them up the
Sudley Road towards the sound of the artillery, before Longstreet’s men arrived
to overwhelm Sigel. McDowell left Porter to continue the march towards Gainesville,
while he executed his new plan.
But Porter barely made much more progress, advancing to
Dawkin’s Branch, where he discovered not the cavalry skirmishers he had been
fighting all morning, but Confederate infantry.
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