1pm: Jackson tries to lure Yanks to trap at Brawner's Farm

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Gainesville

Meade’s brigade of Reynolds’ Pennsylvania Reserves was having trouble pushing back Bushrod Johnson’s skirmishers. The problem was the battery of smoothbore’s responding to Johnson’s two rifled guns couldn’t reach the Confederates. After suffering under the intermittent fire, a battery of 10-pounder Parrotts was at last brought forward and Meade began to make progress at pushing the Confederates back. Wrote Meade later:

The brigade was then formed in line of battle under the direction of the general commanding the division [Reynolds], with Cooper’s [Parrott] battery in the center, supported by the Third and Fourth Regiments on the right, the Seventh and Eighth on the left, and the First Rifles (Bucktails) in advance as skirmishers.

Johnson’s skirmishers began to fall back, trying to draw Reynolds down the Warrenton Turnpike [US 29] where Taliaferro and Ewell could pounce.

Following behind Reynolds with King’s division, McDowell was still concerned about connecting his troops with Sigel’s corps. Accordingly, while Reynolds pushed back the Confederates, McDowell took advantage of the opportunity and turned King’s Division south at Gainesville, down the Gainesville-Manassas Junction Road [Wellington Road] to spread out in the farmer’s fields. Ricketts’ division, however, turned north on hearing Percy Wyndham’s report from Thoroughfare Gap.

Lower Fords

Meanwhile, John Pope rode with Phil Kearny at the head of a line of over 40,000 men in blue. Heintzelman’s Third Corps, Army of the Potomac was getting ready to cross the fords on Bull Run where the first battle had begun, followed closely by Jesse Reno’s Ninth Corps, and Franz Sigel’s First Corps, Army of Virginia, and, so Pope thought, Fitz John Porter’s Fifth Corps, Army of the Potomac. This last one was instead settling in for a night at Bristoe Station.

Stony Ridge

At his headquarters on the ridge running above the unfinished railroad, Jackson received a copy of McDowell’s General Orders No. 10, probably captured by Bushrod Johnson. In his official report, Johnson laments that his messenger had been captured himself when delivering the captured information, but perhaps he sent a second rider. There was little opportunity outside of Johnson’s to capture the order, which was obsolete already anyway, thanks to Pope’s change of plans.

Thoroughfare Gap

In the Gap, Percy Wyndham’s New Jersey boys were facing stiffer opposition, but still holding. Ricketts had been notified just a few miles west of Gainesville, and was said to be hurrying to reinforce. But Wyndham’s bravado was beginning to be proven ill-informed, since Longstreet had not yet begun to seriously contested the Gap.