Northern Army Pushes Southern Army Back

This at length had been effected; and Schenck’s brigade and Ayres’s battery, of Tyler’s division, were on the point of crossing the Run to aid in completing the Federal triumph.

Continuing The First Battle of Bull Run,
our selection from The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States of America, Volume 1 by Horace Greeley published in 1864. The selection is presented in four easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in The First Battle of Bull Run.

Time: 1861
Place: Manassas Junction, Virginia

Continuing to advance, fighting, followed and supported by Hunter’s entire division, which was soon joined on its left by Heintzelman’s, which had crossed the stream a little later and farther down, the attacking column reached and crossed the Warrenton road from Centerville by the Stone Bridge, giving a hand to William T. Sherman’s brigade of Tyler’s division, and all but clearing this road of the enemy’s batteries and regiments, which here resisted our efforts, under the immediate command of General Joseph E. Johnston.

Here Simon G. Griffin’s battery, which, with James B. Ricketts’s, had done the most effective fighting throughout, was charged with effect by a Confederate regiment, which was enabled to approach it by a mistake of the Federal officers, who supposed it one of their own. Three different attacks were repulsed with slaughter, and the battery remained in our hands, though all its horses were killed. At 3 P.M. the enemy had been driven a mile and a half, and were nearly out of sight, abandoning the Warrenton road entirely to the victorious troops.

General Tyler, on hearing the guns of Hunter on the right, had pushed Sherman’s and soon afterward Keyes’s brigade over the Run to assail the enemy in his front, driving them back after a severe struggle, and steadily advancing until checked by a heavy fire of artillery from batteries on the heights above the road, supported by a brigade of infantry strongly posted behind breast works. A gallant charge by the Second Maine and Third Connecticut temporarily carried the buildings behind which the enemy’s guns were sheltered; but the breastworks were too strong, and our men, recoiling from their fire, deflected to the left, moving down the Run under the shelter of the bluff, covering the efforts of Captain Alexander’s pioneers to remove the heavy abatis whereby the enemy had obstructed the road up from the Stone Bridge. This at length had been effected; and Schenck’s brigade and Ayres’s battery, of Tyler’s division, were on the point of crossing the Run to aid in completing the Federal triumph.

But the Confederates, at first outnumbered at the point of actual collision, had been receiving reinforcements nearly all day; and at this critical moment General Kirby Smith, who that morning had left Piedmont, fifteen miles distant, with the remaining brigade of General Johnston’s army, appeared on the field. Cheer after cheer burst from the Confederate hosts, but now so downcast, as this timely reinforcement rushed to the front of the battle. Smith almost instantly fell from his horse, wounded; but the command of his brigade was promptly assumed by Colonel Arnold Elzey, who pressed forward, backed by the whole reassured and exultant Confederate host, who felt the day was won.

A correspondent of the Richmond Dispatch wrote:

Between two and three o’clock large numbers of men were leaving the field, some of them wounded, others exhausted by the long struggle, who gave us gloomy reports; but, as the firing on both sides continued steadily, we felt sure that our brave Southerners had not been conquered by the overwhelming hordes of the North. It is how ever due to truth to say that the result at this hour hung trembling in the balance. We had lost numbers of our most distinguished officers. Generals Bartow and Bee had been stricken down; Lieutenant-Colonel Johnson, of the Hampton Legion, had been killed; Colonel Hampton had been wounded. But there was at hand the fearless General whose reputation as a commander was staked on this battle: General Beauregard promptly offered to lead the Hampton Legion into action, which he executed in a style unsurpassed and unsurpassable. General Beauregard rode up and down our lines, between the enemy and his own men, regardless of the heavy fire, cheering and encouraging our troops. About this time a shell struck his horse, taking his head off, and killing the horses of his aides Messrs. Ferguson and Hayward. General Johnston also threw himself into the thickest of the fight, seizing the colors of a Georgia regiment and rallying them to the charge. His staff signalized themselves by their intrepidity, Colonel Thomas being killed and Major Mason wounded. Your correspondent heard General Johnston exclaim to General Cocke just at the critical moment, “Oh for four regiments!’ His wish was answered; for in the distance our reinforcements appeared. The tide of battle was turned in our favor by the arrival of General Kirby Smith from Winchester, with four thousand men of General Johnston’s division. General Smith heard, while on the Manassas railroad cars, the roar of battle. He stopped the train and hurried his troops point just where he was most needed.”

The Federal soldiers, who had been fighting thirteen hours, weary, hungry, thirsty, continually encountering fresh regiments, and never seeing even a company hurrying to their own support, became suddenly dismayed and panic-stricken. Elzey’s and Jubal A. Early’s fresh battalions filled the woods on their right, extending rapidly toward its rear, firing on them from under cover, and seeming, by their shots and cries, to be innumerable. Two or three of the regiments recoiled, and then broke, rushing down to the Run. Jefferson Davis, who had left Richmond at 6 A.M., reached the Junction at four, and galloped to the battle-field just in time, it was said, to witness the advance of his cavalry, fifteen thousand strong, under Lieutenant-Colonel J. E. B. Stuart, on the heels of the flying troops. He telegraphed that night to his Congress as follows: “Night has closed upon a hard-fought field. Our forces were victorious. The enemy was routed, and fled precipitately, abandoning a large amount of arms, ammunition, knapsacks, and baggage. The ground was strewed for miles with those killed, and the farmhouses and the ground around were filled with wounded. Pursuit was continued along several routes, toward Leesburg and Centerville, until darkness covered the fugitives. We have captured several field-batteries, stands of arms, and Union and State flags. Many prisoners have been taken.”

More information here and here, and below.

We want to take this site to the next level but we need money to do that. Please contribute directly by signing up at https://www.patreon.com/history