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Dogan’s Ridge
While Fitz John Porter argues with Pope, the Fifth Corps,
Army of the Potomac marched into position on the west face of Dogan’s Ridge
where it meets the Warrenton Turnpike, turning the First Corps, Army of
Virginia resting on the east face into reserves. Most of the Fifth Corps
marched there, anyway. All night, Maj. General George Morell had been with the
lead brigade of the corps, skirmishing with Longstreet’s men on the
Manassas-Gainesville Road [Wellington Road]. When the Fifth Corps had quickly
readied and marched, the lead brigade had been unable to just pack up and
leave, since they were under sporadic fire.
Morell had stayed with them as they fell back a safe
distance before forming columns. But wires had gotten crossed between Morell
and Porter and when a gap opened between the brigade and the rest of the corps,
Morell missed their turn onto Sudley Road and kept marching straight towards
the Junction. By mid-day they would be in Centreville before someone figured
out the error.
Meanwhile, the Southern artillery from Longstreet’s wing saw
the large body of troops moving into position. Unlike the First Corps men, the
Fifth Corps was on the exposed side of Dogan’s Ridge. The artillerists
leisurely opened up on them, trying not to waste ammunition before the real
days’ work, but just enough to keep them unsettled. It worked. The Fifth Corps
men got neither breakfast nor rest after their early morning march.
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