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Stonewall Jackson had withstood attacks from Pope’s army all
day long, and his men—already weary after weeks of his famous grueling marches
and several smaller battles—were beginning to break down. Pope’s men had twice
captured the unfinished railroad near Sudley Road, and had done so again just
recently on the Gainesville-Sudley Road [Featherbed Lane]. Two rested brigades
had countercharged and collapsed the Union flank, and Jackson was certainly
tempted to throw all his reserves behind them, but faced some more serious
concerns.
His left flank was supposed to be anchored on Bull Run at
Sudley Church, but the steady pounding since early morning on A.P. Hill’s
division had severely weakened it. Jackson had ridden to Hill’s headquarters
when he heard that a Union brigade had crossed the railroad unopposed at Sudley
Church (in fact, it had happened before 3:00 pm). Hill told him that his men
were just about out of ammunition, and were pulling as much as they could off
the dead and wounded. They probably would not be able to sustain another
attack.
“General,” Stonewall told Hill quietly, according to one of
Jackson’s aides. “Your men have done nobly; if you are attacked again you will
beat the enemy back.”
“Here it comes,” Hill replied, as the Union artillery began
to fire. He spurred his horse and rode forward.
“I’ll expect you to beat them back,” Jackson called after
him.
Sudley Springs
The artillery was in support of the long-delayed attack of
Maj. General Phil Kearny. First division of relief on the field that morning,
Kearny was now the last to begin an attack in earnest. His First Brigade had
been across the railroad embankment since before 3:00 pm. Already bolstered by
an extra regiment from the reserve brigade, Kearny added four more to it, and
ordered the Second Brigade to support its attack.
Exhausted after having driven off Grover’s men almost two
hours earlier, Gregg’s South Carolinians did their best to hold. Gregg’s men
clung to their little knoll that they had held since the morning and as their
ammunition ran out were ordered to use their bayonets. Maxcy Gregg himself
paced back and forth across the knoll wielding a scimitar his grandfather had
been awarded during the American Revolution, lopping off daises and muttering
“let us die here men!”
The 1st South Carolina Rifles were the first
victim, with Kearny’s First Brigade men wrapping around their flank in a
semi-circle and opening a fire that killed their colonel and lieutenant
colonel. Their major, now commanding, wrote:
[The Union men] soon came, now in still greater force, but our little band, though greatly exhausted, yet met them with as much determination as ever. Our men fell fast around us. The 13th[South Carolina], after exhibiting the greatest endurance and courage during the day, at last gave way and retired from our front, and upon the 1st was hurled full force of the enemy. They pressed on, crossed the cut, and slowly compelled us, step-by-step, to yield the long-coveted position. Here again our men fought the enemy at a few yards.
The men crossing the cut belonged to the supporting brigade,
and included the 101st New York, whose lieutenant colonel recorded
their part in the battle:
After a few minutes [of preparatory fire] the order was given ‘forward,’ and the regiment went on in splendid order, through a heavy fire, at a double-quick. The enemy could not stand the charge, but broke and fled (a few now and then turning to fire). After falling back a short distance they came to a deep cut. Here they attempted to rally, and partially succeeded…
Gregg’s men, joined by the Georgians of Thomas’ brigade who
were also swept up in Kearny’s attack, were being reinforced by North
Carolinians from Hill’s last unengaged brigade. By pure luck, Kearny had
launched an attack just as a Ninth Corps brigade had begun actively skirmishing
further down the line, leaving Hill with nearly no reinforcements. Kearny’s
breakthrough was the strongest of the day and threatened to collapse Jackson’s
entire line, so the general ruefully agreed to send Hill two brigades from the
vicinity of Brawner’s Farm. That meant there would be no one to complete the
destruction of Pope’s forces started by the collapse of the 4:00 pm attack.
Dogan’s Ridge
Not yet aware of Kearny’s success, Pope watched as the
position around Groveton collapsed. The men of Nagle’s Ninth Corps brigade that
had crossed the unfinished railroad just after 4:00 pm now streamed past his
headquarters, joined by survivors of Milroy’s First Corps, Army of Virginia
brigade, and the Excelsior Brigade of the Third Corps, Army of the Potomac.
Carr’s New Jersey brigade was mostly standing its ground, but would rapidly be
overwhelmed if Jackson sent anymore troops after them. Aside from the New
Jersey brigade, there was one tiny brigade and a mob of retreating Union
soldiers between Pope and the whole of Jackson’s wing.
Far from being horrified, Pope was most concerned about Fits
John Porter’s perplexing failure to launch an attack from Gainesville, as
ordered. A message had arrived from Porter asking for orders, but Pope surmised
it had been before his nephew had dispatched with orders to attack. “Tell
general Porter we are having a hard fight,” he told the messenger, then gave
orders to move headquarters across the Sudley Road to Buck Hill. Observing the
Confederate counterattack peter out and assuming it was because Jackson was
nearly beaten, rather than because he was reinforcing against Kearny’s attack,
Pope decided to re-form his line across Dogan’s Ridge and set out to find the
troops to do it.
First, he would put as many of Sigel’s First Corps, Army of
Virginia men as could be rallied on the ridge. But he had little faith in their
commander, so he summoned Irvin McDowell to his new headquarters. McDowell had
had a division on Bald Hill for almost two hours before he finally informed
Pope he was there (and not with Porter on the Manassas-Gainesville Road
[Wellington Road]). More grateful to have his most trusted subordinate and
relatively fresh troops on hand, Pope eagerly listened to his scant (and wildly
inaccurate) description of Porter’s position, then shared with McDowell the
situation on the battlefield.
Now feeling better about Dogan’s Ridge than when he had left
it--because of the better-than-expected shape of Schenck’s First Corps, Army of
Virginia division shifted from Chinn Ridge, south of the Turnpike—Pope
considered sending McDowell’s one division to reinforce Kearny. But the noise
of the one-armed general’s breakthrough was finally loud enough to hear, and
McDowell convinced him his men were more useful on Dogan’s Ridge.
Pope consented, and McDowell rode his horse back to Bald
Hill as fast as he could. He was at last in the battle, but he needed men on
the ridge to be truly back in the game. The first men he found were the brigade
of Brig. General John Gibbon that had fought at Brawner’s Farm the night
before. Gibbon recorded the interaction in his memoirs, though time and
subsequent grudges appears to have eliminated the period of rest his men
received:
Late in the afternoon… I met General McDowell with his staff and mounted escort around him. He came forward to meet me, appearing to be laboring under great excitement and exclaiming--“Hurry forward, hurry forward you are just in the nick of time!” I explained that my tired men were coming as fast as possible, but that was not very fast as they had been marching all night before and all day and were very much tired out. He repeated the admonition “to hurry” and as the head of the column appeared I asked him what orders he had. He said “Go right up that road,” pointing to the continuation of the road we were on as it climbs the hill on the other side of the Warrenton pike leading to Sudley Spring. “To whom shall I report?” I asked. “Go right up that road,” he replied, “I shall be here.”
Gibbon’s brigade was off to battle, though once again, the
rest of the division and corps did not follow.
Stuart’s Hill
On Stuart’s Hill, James Longstreet had come to the
conclusion that the mysterious Union force on the Gainesville-Manassas Road
[Wellington Road] wasn’t a threat. It had remained inactive all morning, and
his cavalry had reported it was substantially diminished in size. But when he
informed Robert E. Lee, he found himself still arguing the general down from an
all-out attack. This time, it was because there were only two hours before
dark. While it was true that as many as three additional Union corps were
somewhere between Alexandria and Manassas Junction (McClellan’s army), not
enough would be able to arrive before morning to save Pope. Better to more
completely defeat him in the morning.
Bitterly, Lee yielded, but not before ordering a
reconnaissance in force down the Warrenton Turnpike, to get an idea just how
soft Pope was after a day of thrashing.
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