Chapter 25: the battle of Bull's Run,
- Composition of the opposing armies, 584.--585. -- movements of the National troops on Fairfax Court House, 586. -- the troops at Centreville, 587. -- skirmish at Blackburn's Ford, 588. -- plans of attack by each party, 590. -- Beauregard re-enforced by Johnston, 591. -- the forward movement, 592. -- the battle of Bull's Run in the morning, 593. -- battle in the afternoon, 598. -- the Confederates re-enforced, 601. -- flight of the National Army, 603. -- the retreat to the defenses of Washington, 606. -- the immediate result, of the battle, 607.
The long-desired forward movement of the greater portion of the National Army that lay in the vicinity of the Capital, full fifty thousand in number, began on the afternoon of Tuesday, the 16th of July,
1861. |
McDowell's forces were organized in five divisions,2 commanded respectively [585] by Brigadier-Generals Daniel Tyler and Theodore Runyon, and Colonels David Hunter, Samuel P. Heintzelman, and Dixon S. Miles. The Confederate force against which this army was to move was distributed along Bull's Run,4 from Union Mill, where the Orange and Alexandria Railway crosses that stream, to the Stone Bridge of the Warrenton Turnpike, the interval being about eight miles.5 The run formed an admirable line of defense. Its steep, rocky, and wooded banks, and its deep bed, formed an almost impassable barrier to troops, excepting at the fords, which were a mile or two apart. They had reserves at Camp Pickens, near Manassas Junction, a dreary hamlet before the war, on a high, bleak plain, and composed of an indifferent railway station-house and place of refreshments and a few scattered cottages. Near there,
Daniel Tyler. |
Orders for the advance were given on the 15th,
July, 1861. |
July 17. |
Beauregard's Headquarters at Manassas. |
Tyler, with the right wing, moved along the Georgetown Road. Hunter, with the center, advanced by the Leesburg and Centreville Road; and a portion of the left wing, under Heintzelman, went out from near Alexandria, along the Little River Turnpike. Another portion, under Miles, proceeded by the old “Braddock road,” that passes through Fairfax Court House and Centreville, where it becomes the Warrenton Turnpike. They found the roads obstructed by felled trees near Fairfax Court House, but no opposing troops. These had fallen back to Centreville. The impediments were soon removed. At noon, the National Army occupied the deserted village, and the National flag, raised by some of Burnside's Rhode Islanders, soon occupied the place of a Confederate one found flying over the Court House. The Commanding General and Tyler's division moved on two miles farther to the
The field of operations. |
General McDowell, pretty well informed concerning the strong position of the Confederate force; intended to turn its right flank at Manassas by a sudden movement to his left, crossing the Occoquan River below the mouth of Bull's Run, and, seizing the railway in the rear of his foe, compel both Beauregard and Johnston to fall back from their positions, so menacing to the National Capital. With this view, he made a reconnoissance on the morning of the 18th, while Tyler moved forward with his division, and at nine o'clock marched through Centreville without any opposition, and halted in a little valley between it and Bull's Run. This movement was intended as a feint, but ended in a sharp engagement.
Centreville was a small village on the west side of a ridge running nearly parallel with the general course of Bull's Run, which was west of it five or six miles, and near it the Confederates had erected strong earthworks. These were occupied by a brigade of South Carolinians under General Bonham, who fled, at the approach of Tyler, to the wooded banks of bull's Run. Several roads, public and private, led to that stream from Centreville.
The Stone Bridge.7 |
One was the Warrenton Turnpike, that crossed at the Stone Bridge, a structure of a single arch that spanned the Run; another led to Mitchel]s Ford, midway between Centreville and Manassas Junction; and still another led to Blackburn's Ford, over which General James Longstreet was watching.
Toward noon, Tyler went out on a reconnaissance toward Blackburn's [588]