GENERAL JOHNSTON TO THE RESCUE
By preärrangement, of which none but the chief Confederate officers knew, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, who was confronting a Yankee army in the Valley under General Patterson, who had orders to hold Johnston in the Valley while McDowell attacked Beauregard at Manassas, was to come to General Beauregard's support at the proper time. And if General McDowell stole a march on Beauregard on the morning of the 21st, General Johnston had on the 18th stolen a march on Patterson. On the 18th, about noon, Johnston got word from Beauregard that McDowell was in his front with an army much larger than his own, and that now was the time to help. Johnston, who was then at Winchester, at once put his army in motion up the Valley pike, then marching across towards the Blue Ridge to Piedmont, with Jackson's Brigade in the lead, which marched seventeen miles that afternoon. Jackson boarded the cars at Piedmont, and on the 20th by noon was at Manassas, the other troops following. Jackson, as before said, was placed in rear of the line along Bull Run as a reserve, and now, at a critical moment on the 21st, arrived on the battlefield, and noting the situation, remarked, so it was said, "We will give those people the bayonet," and forming his brigade in line of battle, stood firmly awaiting the propitious moment, as the Yankees were ascending the pine-covered hill on which he and his men stood. General Bee called on his broken and retreating men of the far South to "rally on the Virginians." "Look," exclaimed Bee to the South Carolinians and Alabamians, "see Jackson and his men standing like a stone wall!" Then and there the sobriquet of "Stonewall" was given to this demigod of war and his brigade, which will live forever.
As the Yankee line pressed up the hill, Jackson charged, driving them back in confusion, thus giving the first substantial check to the enemy, who had pressed back the Confederate lines for a mile or more.