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Buck Hill
Army of Virginia headquarters was overrun by disgruntled
subordinates during the 1:00 hour. In one corner, James Ricketts was arguing
with Irvin McDowell that he couldn’t lead a column down the Haymarket Road [no
longer existent] because the Confederates were still behind the unfinished
railroad cut. He had advanced his skirmishers, he could see the artillery,
McDowell had to believe they were there. For a time, his superior pushed back,
since he himself had been to the area and somehow missed the Confederate army
while scouting, but eventually he relented. He told Ricketts to hold off on
pursuit, and sent a messenger to Sam Heintzelman for the column to wait.
Nearby, a messenger from Franz Sigel was gravely relaying
information to John Pope. The First Corps, Army of Virginia commander, who
believed McDowell and Heintzelman’s scouting report that Jackson was
retreating, had reservations about Pope’s dismissal of Porter and Reynolds’
reports that Longstreet was south of the Turnpike. He had sent a regiment of
New York cavalry down the Old Warrenton-Alexandria-Washington Pike [Ball’s Ford
Road] and they had run into Confederate cavalry, infantry, and artillery in
substantial numbers. Alarmed at their report, Sigel had sent them directly to
Pope.
Sigel’s messenger hadn’t been finished long when John
Reynolds rode up at a gallop, his horse in a lather. “The enemy is turning our
left!” he shouted to Pope. The commanding general shrugged Reynolds off, but
this time the Pennsylvanian wasn’t going to let it go. He had advanced some
skirmishers as far as Lewis Lane and found the expected return fire in front of
him, but it was fire that came far from his left that had so unsettled him.
“The skirmishers opened fire upon me, and I was obliged to run the gauntlet of
a heavy fire to gain the rear of my division,” he wrote after the battle. It
meant there were Confederates far further south than there were Union units and
all it would take was an order to outflank the army.
“I thought the information of sufficient importance to bring
it to you myself and run the gauntlet of three Rebel battalions,” Reynolds
angrily snarled at Pope, “I would have thought you would believe me.”
Pope called over Brig. General John Buford and asked him to
use his cavalry brigade to scout the left in order to mollify Reynolds, but it
didn’t work. Reynolds didn’t need a scout, he needed support against the
Confederate masses opposite him, so he found McDowell and argued his case to
him. McDowell listened with concern as Reynolds explained the Confederates
hadn’t retreated, they had just shifted so as to flank the army. It didn’t
square with Ricketts’ report that the Confederates hadn’t moved at all. But
Reynolds was insistent enough that McDowell mounted his horse and asked to see
it personally.
Groveton Woods
Fitz John Porter was also having problems with his orders.
When he had left headquarters, there had been a miscommunication in Pope’s
vague oral orders. He had set up his two divisions on the west side of Dogan’s
Ridge in anticipation of attacking the standing Confederate forces. But
McDowell’s orders told him to attack down the Turnpike, not the intersection of
the Unfinished Railroad and Groveton-Sudley Road [Featherbed Lane].
The orders were problematic for another reason for Porter.
On the Brawner Farm, perched on heights commanding the Turnpike, were vast
numbers of Confederate artillery that had harassed his men all morning and
would make mincemeat of them if they marched down the Turnpike. Instead, Porter
had planned on sending the two brigades of Morell’s division that had not
gotten lost and gone to Centreville across the railroad, so that they could
come down Stony Ridge onto Brawner’s Farm from above. It was a textbook assault
on artillery.
He wrote a note to McDowell explaining the problem, and
McDowell’s approval came back quickly, so Porter green lit the attack. No
sooner had he done so than a message came back from the commander of the attack
that he couldn’t proceed, because his right flank was entirely unsupported.
Porter didn’t know for sure that the Confederates still held the length of the
unfinished railroad, but his cautious military professionalism put him on guard
not to move against a fixed position if it was possible for the enemy to come
forward and shoot you in the side.
Ricketts should have been to the right with his skirmishers,
but when McDowell had canceled his order to advance, he had never sent Porter
notice. Fortunately, the four brigades from the Third Corps, Army of Virginia
under John Hatch were waiting patiently on the Turnpike for the pursuit to
begin. Porter ordered them up to the right as quickly as possible, delaying his
attack until the support was in place.
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