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The men of the 1st South Carolina were stationed
on the edge of the woods that shrouded Meadowville Lane [No longer existent]
watching two brigades of John Reynolds’ Pennsylvania reserves march across what
one called “a pretty little meadow.” They watched as the Union men reached a
fence, which one of the Pennsylvanians recalled caused his regiment to “become
somewhat disordered in crossing.” As soon as they got through a Confederate
battery (possibly that of Fauquier County native Robert Stribling) opened fired
on the Northerners.
The Bucktails reached the Palmetto Staters’ skirmish line,
who fired and sprinted back to the regiment. The men in blue continued to
advance across the field under artillery fire, until they came within 100 yards
of the South Carolinians, who opened fire in a crashing volley. Reynolds’ two
brigades exchanged fire with the Southern regiment for about ten minutes, while
Stribling’s artillery zeroed in on the Union men.
But Reynolds’ heart had never been in the attack and he
called his men back. Just before they had stepped off he had received news that
Schenck’s division of the First Corps, Army of Virginia had been withdrawn from
Groveton. Unaware that Fitz John Porter’s Fifth Corps, Army of the Potomac was
to his south on the Manassas-Gainesville Road [Wellington Road] and the rest of
his own Third Corps, Army of Virginia was attempting to find him, Reynolds
concluded he was now the only division south of Warrenton Turnpike. Since
neither Porter nor McDowell had any idea where Reynolds was, he might as well
have been.
As the Pennsylvania Reserves scurried back to the Lewis
Farm, the 1st South Carolina gleefully welcomed the remainder of
their brigade at the woods’ edge, come to strengthen them in case Reynolds
tried another attack.
Bald Hill
McDowell was at that moment arriving on the battlefield. He
had left Patrick’s brigade of King’s division that he had gotten lost earlier
in the day, and ridden forward to join the lead brigade marching north on the
Sudley Road, that of Hatch, who was also serving as division commander after
King’s seizure the day before. Reaching Bald Hill, McDowell approved Hatch’s
request to rest his exhausted men, but only if they deployed across the hill
parallel to the road, facing west. It would have been a sensible precaution in
nearly any other set of circumstances.
Sudley Springs
Grover led his 1,500 men from Hooker’s division carefully
through the woods. The point on the railroad embankment he finally chose for
his attack was just a few hundred feet to the west of the spot the men of Sigel’s
First Corps had hammered all morning, eventually achieving a temporary
breakthrough. But the spot Grover chose was fully wooded to provide cover.
On the right flank, the historian of the 1st
Massachusetts remembered the men were grateful for the decision as soon as the
firing started, with the men
taking advantage of every tree behind which a man’s body could be hidden, and creeping from tree to tree under cover of the thick underbrush which constantly separated the men and mingled companies and even regiments together…
Colonel Blaisdell, commanding the 11th
Massachusetts on the left flank of the brigade, wrote in his official report
that:
moving forward, driving the enemy’s pickets before it, the regiment came upon and engaged a heavy line of the enemy’s infantry, which was driven back and over a line of railroad where the road-bed was 10 feet high, behind which was posted another heavy line of infantry, which opened a terrific fire upon the regiment as it emerged from the woods. The 11th regiment, being the battalion of direction, was the first to reach the railroad, and of course received the heaviest of the enemy’s fire. This staggered the men a little, but, recovering in an instant, they gave a wild hurrah and over they went, mounting the embankment, driving everything before them at the point of the bayonet.
To their right, the ever-colorful historian of the 2nd
New Hampshire, recalled the charge similarly:
…there was a crash of rebel musketry, an answering roar of Yankee cheers, and almost instantly the 2d was pouring over the railroad embankment. The dash was evidently a surprise to the rebels, as most of them, having delivered their fire, were closely hugging the ground under cover of the bank. They were expecting a return volley, apparently, but had not anticipated looking into the muzzles of the guns that delivered it. Those that made a fight were instantly shot or bayoneted, and in less time that it has taken to write it the first rebel line was disposed of. Some threw up their hands and cried for mercy; some doubtless “played possum”… while others, as soon as they could realize what had happened, made a break for the rear, closely followed by the men of the 2d, now wild with the rage of battle.
An officer of the 45th Georgia was one of the few
that stayed to fight the Granite State men, and had a different opinion of his
regiment’s conduct:
Gen. Hill had sent a currier previous to [the attack] for us to get out from there, but we failed to get it. Our brigade fought like heroes. Our regiment was in the center. The first we knew both wings had given away and the 45th was nearly surrounded. The last fire I made I stood on the embankment and fired right down amongst them just as they were charging up the bank, about fifteen ranks deep. I turned and saw the whole regiment getting away, and I followed the example in triple quick time.
Grover’s men plowed through the Georgians that had been
fighting all morning in support of Gregg’s South Carolina brigade. One of the South
Carolinians watched the attack unfold to his left, remembering that “a short
resistance was made and Thomas’ brigade gave way,” forcing him to scramble for
every man he could find to avoid the blue wave from crashing onto his own
brigade. But no matter how many men he gathered, if there were enough of them
they could simply wrap around his make-shift line and take them from behind.
Thomas was able to stop enough Georgians a few hundred feet
back to make another stand, while the South Carolinians poured fire into the
ranks of New Englanders. Grover threw in his two reserve regiments and ordered
a messenger to find his long-promised support. The historian of the 2nd
New Hampshire again:
The fragments of the first line were driven in upon a second, a few rods beyond the railroad, and here occurred the most desperate fighting of the day—a hand-to-hand melee with bayonets and clubbed muskets. Such a fight cannot last long. New Hampshire won. The second rebel line was routed and scattered to the rear. By this time no semblance of organization was left in the 2nd, but the men still on their feet dashed on again, every one for himself.
Watching the whole affair with alarm was Brigadier General
Dorsey Pender and his North Carolina brigade. He wrote that the Northerners
“made a vigorous attack on our left, plunging with great fury into A.P. Hill’s
division, piercing with the bayonet a gap in our line. It looked for a time as
if the entire left wing of the Confederate army would be overwhelmed…”
But Pender wouldn’t allow that to happen. He ordered his
brigade to charge. With the fire from the South Carolinians hampering the 1st
Massachusetts, and well-positioned Confederates from a different brigade posing
a threat to the 11th, the New Hampshire men had gotten the furthest
beyond the line and bore the initial brunt of the counterattack. “The scattered
men of the 2d halted close up to the enemy, and loaded and fired as rapidly as
possible in an effort to hold the position they had won until supports could
come up.”
They didn’t. The historian of the 1st
Massachusetts said that “the enemy saw their advantage, and hastened to improve
it. They advanced with yells and shouts” while the Union men tried to fall back
slowly. Pender and his North Carolinians methodically drove them back over the
railroad embankment, the Georgians and the South Carolinians joining in. The 2nd
New Hampshire had the closest call of the brigade:
As they recrossed the railroad bank they were exposed to a murderous fire from each flank, to say nothing of the very bad language used by the rebels in calling upon them to stop; and a few minutes delay would have found that gap closed and almost the entire regiment securely corralled.
Having seized the railroad embankment again, Pender moved
his brigade across and kept driving Grover through the woods. The brigade fell
back, with little organization to resist the North Carolinians, until they were
running across a field back towards Dogan’s Ridge. Only some well-aimed
artillery fire from Matthews’ Hill and the lack of support for Pender’s
unexpected success kept a massive rout from occurring. Instead, Pender fell
back to the railroad embankment to take up Thomas’s position while the Georgian
gathered up his men.
Where was Grover’s support? To the west, another of the
three brigades from Hooker’s division was charging the spot where the
unfinished railroad crossed Groveton-Sudley Road [Featherbed Lane]. The Jersey
men were probably not meant to be Grover’s support, since they were joining one
of their regiments that had been skirmishing at that spot in the line since
Robert Milroy had retreated from it earlier. Some claim that they made it
across the railroad embankment, but if so it was brief enough that Confederate
forces didn’t report it. Hooker’s third brigade might be a more likely source
of support, but they had remained inactive until nearly 4:00, when Hooker sent
them to relieve the New Jersey men.
The support promised to Grover was more likely meant to be
Kearny’s long-delayed attack. If the cantankerous general had attacked with his
brigade astride the railroad embankment since just before 3:00, Gregg’s South
Carolinians would have been caught between it and Grover and almost certainly
would have pulled back. But even that would have been temporary, since Kearny’s
other two brigades remained immobile until 4:00 and there would have been no
one to resist Pender’s counterattack. As it was, Grover and his staff had
serious work ahead of them to gather up the pieces of the brigade.
Dogan’s Ridge
If John Pope was aware of the peril to his right flank where
Pender had shattered Grover’s brigade, or to his left flank where Porter and
Reynolds represented small islands amidst an ocean of Confederates, there is no
record of it. In fact, for his entire life he denied that that situation had
ever existed. Only Longstreet’s difficulty locating the exact location of
McDowell’s corps kept Lee from ordering an all out attack that would have
obliterated the army.
Instead of being concerned about his own position, Pope had
become obsessed with capturing Jackson, who he still believed was alone and
trapped. The First Corps, Army of Virginia had been wrecked trying to carry the
railroad Jackson was hiding behind that morning, the Third Corps, Army of the
Potomac was in the process of attacking (and being wrecked), so Pope was
determined now to throw the Ninth Corps into the fight.
The affable Maj. General Jesse Reno, a loyal Virginian from
Wheeling, commanded the two division detachment of the Ninth Corps loaned to Pope
by its commanding general, Ambrose Burnside. One division had been scattered
along the line as it arrived on the field, but Reno’s own division of two
brigades remained on Dogan’s Ridge. Pope sat down to draft orders sending it
against the railroad where it crossed the Groveton-Sudley Road [Featherbed
Lane].
Around the time that he did so, one of his aides-de-camp
returned to headquarters. He had been with Reynolds during the attack from
Lewis Farm, and he had come to believe the Pennsylvanian when he swore that a
huge number of Confederates were south of the Turnpike. Reynolds had described
to the aide the large number of battle flags he had counted, and he had made
him watch the advance across the field with him.
“You are excited young man,” Pope admonished the aide when
he told him the number of Confederates he believed to be in front of Reynolds.
“The people you see are General Porter’s command taking position on the left of
the army.”
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