Dogan’s Ridge
Stonewall Jackson was making very little effort to attack
the Union men opposite him. He didn’t really have to. Longstreet’s complete
obliteration of the defenders on Chinn Ridge had caught them in an untenable
trap between the two wings of the Confederate army, and they were withdrawing
on their own. All Jackson had to do was keep them moving.
Like during the Seven Days’ the month before, it is
difficult to understand why the hyper aggressive Jackson chose not to push home
an attack. Lee was riding with Longstreet and caught up in the fight, but
Jackson was not usually one to need orders to charge. It’s also possible that
he recognized the exhaustion of his men after the grueling two weeks previous
and didn’t want to risk their repulse and rout while the Northerners were
giving up already.
Powell Hill certainly saw it, and urged his exhausted men
who had broken charge after charge the day before forward only sufficiently to
keep the pressure on. Some did so
enthusiastically enough to capture several batteries, but they were the
exception. The rest came forward steadily, enduring bombardment from Matthews’
Hill, and keeping ranks well enough to remind the attackers-turned-defenders
that they could charge, even if they hadn’t yet.
Coordinating the fall back on the other side was Samuel
Heintzelman, at last exercising some sort of command commiserate with his rank.
He felt fortunate that his two divisions were posted on either wing of Dogan’s
Ridge too, for the first time. He had Kearny fall back along the banks of Bull Run, guarding against
any effort by Jackson to ford at Sudley Springs and cut off retreat, and Hooker
to manage falling back along the turnpike.
Heintzelman had already sent some of Sigel’s troops including
his artillery to Buck Hill, while others were rushed to the southerly end of
Dogan’s Ridge to stem Longstreet’s attacks. There had been very little
coordinated effort by the Southerners, though, and it had mostly been brigades
or mobs that had gotten carried away and charged against whoever they saw.
With the First Corps, Army of Virginia men thrown down as
sacrificial lambs to stem the Southern assault, had been Abner Doubleday.
Doubleday was now commanding King’s division, but with two of the brigades
routed as part of Porter’s assault, and John Gibbon being himself, he was
pretty much leading only his own brigade. He had been placed by Hooker on the
Turnpike, below the Dogan house, but with the dissipation of an organized
Confederate assault, he was now facing an entirely different threat. He was so
far out that Sigel’s artillery on Buck Hill thought they were Confederates and
took aim on then. Doubleday had his regiments wave their flag, but the
artillerists thought it was a sign of defiance and brought more guns to bear. A
trained artillerist himself, Doubleday turned his brigade around and marched
into the Confederates in order to ruin their aim while his messenger ran at top
speed to call them off.
Henry Hill
It was Henry Hill on which the fight was still raging. Irvin
McDowell was doing everything he could to solve the problem he had created by
moving as many troops as possible to the top. Henry and Buck Hills form twin
pillars, through which the Warrenton Turnpike passes on to cross Bull Run at
Stone Bridge. Keeping both was essential to using the Turnpike as an avenue of
communication to Washington, for reinforcements or retreat.
Opposite the Sudley Road on Chinn Ridge Longstreet’s assault
was now in the hands of D.R. “Neighbor” Jones, commanding a nearly entirely Georgian
division. Behind him on the ridge were the remains of two Confederate
divisions, entirely without order. Some soldiers had plopped down exhausted,
some were corralling their prisoners, and others were fighting on with the
Georgia men as leaderless masses.
On the far left were a brigade of regulars—some of the few
professional soldiers as opposed to volunteers provided by the states. This had
been the brigade that Pope had found marching away on the Turnpike and they
were making up for it with some of the fiercest fighting of the day. Not only
did they have to hold back the Georgians, but a brigade of southside Virginians
from Anderson’s division had come up and was wrapping around their flank [where
NOVA is today]. The 83rd New York, one of Sigel’s that had become
separated on Chinn Ridge, but fell back to Henry Hill and joined the regulars
instead of running, held the edge of the line as well as a professional unit.
On the other end of the line, John Reynolds was leading the
two surviving brigades of the Pennsylvania Reserves. Unlike further to the left
where Robert Milroy’s brigade was stationed and the Georgians had to plunge
down hill from Chinn Ridge, only to scale the road banks to Henry Hill, most of
Reynolds’ men were in the valley of Young’s Branch. Sigel’s artillery—finally
letting Doubleday pass—was perfectly positioned to make up for the poor ground.
After a charge, the Georgians staggered back and Reynolds was ready.
With a cheer, the Pennsylvanians dashed across Sudley Road,
Milroy at their side, and forced the Georgians to flee all the way up Chinn
Ridge. Reynolds sent a runner to McDowell to let him know the enemy was falling
back and to send reinforcements. But Robert Milroy was already at headquarters
ranting, a mad look in his eye. One staffer remembered that it took minutes to
even figure out what Milroy was saying, but the gist of it was that he wanted a
second brigade assigned to him so he could rout the Confederates. The staffer
wrote that McDowell pretended he wasn’t there.
McDowell did, however, respond to Reynolds’ request, and the
final brigade of the army, another of regulars, was put in behind the
Pennsylvania Reserves. In the confusion of the battlefield and subsequent
recriminations, it’s hard to track exactly who ordered what. But when the
regular brigade took position in Young’s Branch, Reynolds’ Pennsylvania
Reserves fell back and turned over defense to them.
McDowell was just getting things stabilized when an order
reached him from John Pope: general retreat. The Union was admitting defeat.
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